


Happy Families are all Alike

by Darkmagyk



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Family, Fluff, Meeting the Parents, Pregnancy, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-03-28 07:14:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13899003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkmagyk/pseuds/Darkmagyk
Summary: Jon has wanted to be a member of the Stark family since he followed Robb home from boarding school one winter break.To his mind they are the perfect family. Two parents, five kids, giant wolves they treat like dogs, and lots of love. They have no adultery, history of mental instability, scandals, or bastard kids muddying up the waters.Now’s he’s got a Stark daughter for a fiancée and half a Starkling on the way.All he has to do is officially introduce his mother to them, and it will be smooth sailing from here on out.





	1. Happy Families are all Alike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the first line of Anna Karenina, which is otherwise completely unimportant to the story.
> 
> Inspired by a common trope in Jonsa fic I just don't like much.

Sansa Stark was beautiful. Jon had known this since he was in seventh grade and had come to the Winterfell for the first time.

That had been eighteen years ago.

He couldn’t really believe, now, that he got to be the one to wake up next to her every day for the rest of his life. He couldn’t believe that the just opened blue eyes wanted to look at him first thing every morning.

The thought must have caused a dumb look to cross his face, because little lines appeared between her eyebrows.

“What are you thinking about?” She whispered her voice slightly hoarse from sleep.

“How lucky I am.” He told her, “And how happy I am that I get you forever.” He caught one of her hands beneath the covers, and brought it up between them to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and then the diamond, before locking their hands together, and worrying the platinum band with his thumb.

He’d flown out to Essos to get it done by one of his aunt’s favorite jewelers. The milky moonstones that surrounded the main diamond had actually been a gift from Ned when Jon had confessed to Robb and Arya his plan to propose and were something like Stark heirlooms. He’d even discarded his normal rule of ignoring his trust fund save for emergencies or school and used some of that money to pay for it.

Sansa Stark was the kind of girl who deserved it.

And let it never be said Jon didn’t give Sansa Stark what she deserved.

Sansa just grinned, “I’m pretty sure I’m the lucky one.” She leaned in, and their lips met. Just a quick, little thing.

“But you see,” Jon said, when they pulled back, “I get you.” He untangled their hands, and brought his to caress her side, before letting it settle on her stomach. “And it get this.”

Sansa grinned brightly in response. “I think we both get that.” She said. Sixteen weeks, and it was pretty clear to anyone who saw her naked (so Jon) that she was pregnant.

Jon had never been so happy in their five years together. Not when she’d first agreed to go out with him when he first realized he’d fallen in love with her. Not when she’d agreed to move in with him. Not even when she’d said yes to his proposal a year ago.

He loved Sansa more than anything, and she and the Starks had been his family since he was in middle school. But the baby was real and tangible proof of that love and that family. A sign of forever much stronger than the diamond on her finger.

(That his parents had never been married, that his father had been married to someone else before, during, and after his parents relationship, that his birth had been a hindrance to all involved was not allowed to cross his mind as far as these things were concerned.)

And after they told their family tonight, they could tell everyone. And the whole world would know how much Sansa was Jon’s and Jon was Sansa’s.

And then maybe Ned and Catelyn would see a little bit of reason, the production of the wedding could be scaled down to it could happen sooner rather than later.

(If Jon could have his way, he’d do it during their trip, when all of the Starks where home, and his mother in town. But he doubted he’d get is way. He doesn’t even want to ask. Sansa Stark deserved a real wedding after all.)

“We should get up,” She said, glancing at the powder blue clock hanging on the wall over his head, “If we don’t get their soon, Mom’ll clean up breakfast.”

Jon nodded and they both made to get out of bed.

It still blew his mind, all these years later, that Catelyn Stark cooked breakfast for her family herself nearly every day.

He hadn’t actually believed it when he’d first shown up at here at twelve. His stepmother, Elia, by all accounts a caring and invested mother, had done no such thing during his (admittedly rare) trips to Summerhall. And though his own mother had been fairly eager to share a meal with him when she was around, even then she’d leave the cooking to his nanny or the restaurant down the street.

Jon knew the Starks employed a full time cook (she’d slipped him and Robb enough treats over the years) but Catelyn still make a point to use the smaller kitchen in the family wing to make food for her family at least once a day. And when she did that, she also always cleaned up after herself.

Everything about the Starks was the best thing Jon had ever heard of.

Sansa’s childhood bathroom was like her childhood bedroom, still in the decor she’d chosen at 13. In this case, it was lemon yellow, chosen, Jon knew, to reflect her love of lemon scented bath products, and the lemon bath mat she on the floor.

She made to get in the shower while he was brushing his teeth, and it only took him a moment to shuck off his boxers and decide to follow her.

“What do you think you're doing?” She asked when he slid the door open.

“We want to save time, so we don’t miss breakfast.” Jon said, with a smirk “So two showers in one saves time.”

Her eyes grazed along his chest, and then drifted down. “This will not save time.”

“I can behave.” He said.

“Which is just not fair.” She said, reaching out to run a hand down the path her eyes had just taken, down his chest and then wrapping her delicate fingers around his cock and giving it a quick squeeze. “Because you know I can’t.”

He groaned, which had the advantage of hiding the smirk. Because he did know that he’d be more than happy to make their shower completely about getting clean, and she’d basically demand they both got off. (They were the opposite if they started making out in the car. It was great, how they balanced each other out.)

“If you insist.” He said, pulling her close and kissing her long and hard on the lips, but keeping his lips closed when her tongue darted out of her mouth to request entry. He laid closed mouth kisses down her jaw and neck, ignoring her protests of “stop playing around.”

When he reached her breasts, he finally opened his mouth, laving at them with his tongue in turn. They were bigger, now. A full weight he cupped in each hand as he sucked lightly on the buds. She moaned. They were getting more and more sensitive, and soon he might not be able to do this at all, for fear of causing the unpleasant sort of pain. Soon, they’d be busy feeding his child.

The pleasure at that thought wasn’t sexual. It was so much more. He let go of her breasts and removed his mouth, instead, sinking onto his knees and using his hands to grasp her hips, pulling her closer, and nuzzling at the bump, before covering it with kissed.

“Jon,” She interrupted an indeterminate amount of time later, “Don’t get distracted.” He looked up, and his eyes met her slightly glazed blue ones.

He smirked again, and then pushed her back so her back was solid against one of the walls, and then pushed her legs as far apart as he could in this position.

They were, technically on a time limit, so he skipped most of his teasing, and went straight to playing with her clit with his tongue. Despite the shower, she hasn’t actually managed to wash anything before he’d joined her, so her scent wasn’t mixed with any soap, and he breathed it deeply, particularly when he ran his tongue down her inner lips, and lapped at her pussy directly.

The moans she made at the feel of it went straight to his groin, making him moan in turn, his lips vibrating against her’s. The best kind of feedback loop.

He left one hand on her hip for support, but the other he dropped to her bum, groping each cheek for a bit, then running a finger down the center, as his tongue mirrored the movement over her cunt.

When he returned his attentions to her clit, he stuck a finger into her backend, and her legs shook with the pleasure of it. She was so so close, he could tell.

He sped up his efforts on both fronts, sucking on her nub in earnest, while pushing his finger in and out of her hole in rapid time.

His efforts were not in vain, because she came with a cry of his name and a gush of liquid just a minute later. And he didn’t let up until her legs started shaking again, and he worried she might actually fall. Now was no time for shower slips.

He made sure to keep a firm hold on her as he got to his feet.

With water dripping off all her creamy skin, rolling down her enlarged breasts and growing belly, turning her copper hair darker, she was a vision. And he kissed her again, long and open mouthed this time, so she could taste herself.

She groped at his cock, and he spilled in her hand after just a few firm, quick strokes.

“Now we really should get cleaned up.” She said, as his seed was washed down the drain, “I want to make a good first impression.”

Jon scoffed as he lathered his hands with her lemon shampoo, some kind of specialty formula for redheads she got specially scented. Before massaging the soap into her hair.

“As if you were capable of making anything other than a great first impression.” Jon asked, “Because I don’t believe it.”

“You didn’t have a great first impression of me.” She countered.

“That’s because I was 12 and dumb, and under the impression that anything in that much pink wanted to eat me.” He said, “I’ve since learned better.”

But Sansa bit her lip in response to his joke.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m going to meet your mother for the first time.” She said. “ _And_ introduce her to all of the Stark family crazy.” she frowned, and then looked down, “ _And_ tell her she’s about to be a _grandmother_.”

“Hey,” Jon said, guiding her chin up, “No. First off, she’s going to love you. And then she’s going to love you family. Because who can’t love all of you. And she’s going to be happy about being a grandmother. Because she will be able to send cool gifts from around the world, and not have to deal with middle of the night cryings. It's a win/win.” He grinned, and she smiled back “Besides, I’m the one who has to tell Ned Stark I knocked up his princess out of wedlock.”

Sansa did laugh at that. “As if. Dad’s desperate for grandkids. And also adores you. I think when we announced our engagement he was actually hoping I was pregnant.”

All of that was true. Ned Stark was the ultimate family man, and had been more than willing to see Jon as family since he was a kid.

That Jon somehow looked more like Ned then any of his actual children, save Arya, probably helped with that.

Jon couldn’t really imagine a world where everyone wasn’t excited about it.

His mother was likely to be the least excited. Still happy, but unlikely to burst into tears like Ned probably would, or demand they move to Winterfell, or at least Wintertown like Catelyn was sure to.

They laughed at the prospect as they showered in earnest. But once they made to get dressed, he noticed that Sansa took a bit of time deliberating her outfit, before deciding on a sweater she’d embroidered with blue roses herself, and a white skirt printed with grey wolves.

As quintessentially Sansa Stark as she could get.

And their combined stomach rumbling wouldn’t have been enough to distract them, but Sansa was eating for two, even if you couldn’t tell, and they journeyed to the family kitchen.

It wasn’t as empty as they’d feared. Catelyn was still working at the stove, and Arya, Bran, and Meera all sat in the breakfast nook, eating from mostly full plates.

“There you two are,” Catelyn said brightly. “I was beginning to get worried. We were discussing sending out a search party.”

“But no one volunteered because we were all afraid about what we might find.” Arya said. She ignored the sharp reprimand from her mother, but Jon and Sansa both winced. They had actually been walked in on by all the Stark kids.

“We slept in,” Sansa said, which was true.

“I don’t know how,” Arya said, “Robb had so much to drink last night, and he’s been up for hours. You didn’t drink anything last night.”

“Hangovers wake Robb up,” Jon said, with the sort of glee that could only come from knowing your best friend’s biggest weakness. "It will torture him all day long, and then it will leave and he’ll promptly pass out. Likely at the dinner table.”

Arya, Bran, and Meera all laughed at that, but Catelyn turned away from the counter, looking at Sansa.

“You didn’t drink last night?” All of them had gone to see a play in town, and then to a bar Arya favored afterword. And now that he thought about it, it was a little suspicious that Sansa hadn’t drank anything but water. Sansa was a wine snob, but she came about it honestly, and by trying every glass she could get her hand on. But none of her siblings had seemed to notice last night.

Catelyn was sharp, though. And her eyes rested on Sansa’s well covered midriff.

“I had a headache,” Sansa said, so at ease at lying that she probably should have been the lawyer, instead of him, “I thought alcohol would exacerbate it.”

The nod Catelyn gave clearly said she didn’t buy it, and she looked at Jon with narrowed eyes for a moment too.

“What do you want for breakfast?” She asked, “Nan made lemon scones and orange scones and hazelnut scones and chocolate scones on the table and we have bacon and sausage and steak and cheese and eggs cooked however you like.”

“Sausage and scrambled eggs and cheese,” Sansa offered, and her mother just grabbed an already completed plate, from the counter, and its twin, piled with steak and eggs, and offered them to Sansa and Jon. Like she didn’t actually need to hear their orders, to know what they wanted.

They appeared to be the last ones down, because once they’d started eating, Catelyn dumped the pans and bowls in the sink, and filled them with water and then joined them all at the table.

“When are you picking up Lya?” She asked, as she grabbed an orange scone out of the basket on the table and passed a lemon one to Sansa.

Catelyn was the only Stark to have had any interactions with his mother. Back in middle school, they had exchanged a dozen phone calls to ensure that Jon did actually have permission to spend what ended up being all the school breaks with the Starks. But even that had been a long time ago. By High school it was a given, and his mom had just signed the paperwork before the school year even started that basically gave the Stark’s carte blanche.

He sometimes couldn’t believe how much the Starks had missed his mother. Including Ned’s brother, there were 8 of them, and at least one had been a near constants in Jon’s life from the time he and Robb where sat next to each other in an alphabetical seating chart the first day of seventh grade at the Cassel School.

He and Robb had been alphabet partners, plus roommates and best friends, all the way through Uni. He’d gone to Law School when Arya had been doing her undergrad. When he’d moved to Gulltown for his first law job, Sansa had already been there, and was nice enough to show him around, and return the favor when he fell absolutely head over heels in love with her. And in the four years they’d lived in White Harbor, either Arya or Robb or Bran had lived down the street.

Ned and Catelyn had both helped him with networking for internships and the two law firms he worked at. Ned’s brother Ben had given him a rather astounding number of rides to the airport. Ned had drawn the short straw and somehow wound up teaching him how to shave, and how to talk to girls. When he got sick second year, Catelyn had stayed with him in the hospital, praying over him in her (weird) southern religion like her own son.

Arya and Bran had even both met Rhaegar, and Sansa had met Aegon and Rhaenys twice each and Dany several times. 

But his mother had missed them.

The Stark’s had actually all missed his and Robb's high school graduation due to a snowstorm. And Jon hadn’t bothered with his undergrad ceremony. The Starks had all shown up for his law school one, but his mom had missed her flight out of the Southern Isles .

The several times he and Robb had planned to join his mother in her exotic location for a holiday had fallen through. She’d left Bravos just two days before Arya had arrived and he’d tried to get his mom to help her with a school thing.

She’d been somewhere in the Dothraki Sea, and without reliable email access when he’d wanted to invite her to the engagement party.

And the two times she’d visited White Harbor to see him, Sansa had been out of town on a business trip.

But that weird quirk of fate ended today.

“I’ll probably leave about 2, her flight is supposed to be getting in at 3, but you know how the Wintertown Airport can be.” He said, he glanced around the table, “Anyone want to join me.”

“No,” Arya and Sansa both said, with nearly identical inflection that they’d denied having.

“We’re picking Dad up from the train station at 1:30.” Meera said with a smile.

“Howland’s coming?” Sansa said, surprised, and even though Jon was sure someone had already mentioned it. Maybe Sansa hadn’t been around.

“Is that a problem?” Bran asked, directing the question at Jon.

“Why would it be a problem?” He asked Sansa.

“We don’t want to overwhelm your mother.”

Jon actually laughed at that, “With Howland?” Jon asked, “No one has ever not liked Howland.”

Howland Reed had seemed almost as eager to be a friend to him Ned had.

“That is definitely not true,” Meera said, and there was a slight sadness in her tone, “But he’ll be glad that you think so.”

“And Benjen shouldn’t be here until tomorrow,” Catelyn said, “So that can at least cut down on Sansa’s dreaded overwhelming a little bit.” She promised. She patted her daughter’s hand reassuringly, “Lya’s very nice. Everything is going to be fine.”

“Come on Sansa,” Arya parroted, “You give great parent. I’m sure by the time the weeks over; Jon’s mom will want you to marry her, and not him.”

There was an awkward pause, “Does Gendry’s mom want to marry you?” asked Bran finally.

“His dad,” Arya said dismissively, “But regardless, I’m sure she’ll love you.”

“She will,” Jon agreed, “What’s not to love.”

Sansa nodded. Before today, she’d been really excited. And Arya was right, she did give good parent. Cersei Lannister hadn’t hated her, a special sort of accomplishment, and Anya Waynwood had adored her, and been so upset when things hadn’t worked out with Harry.

Jon and Sansa helped Catelyn clean up the breakfast dishes and then went over the dinner menu she was going to deliver to Nan one more time. And then they went and found an incredibly hungover Robb in the media room. And played very loud video games with Rickon while he groaned in the background about how they got him drunk on purpose until Jon had to go and get his mom.

***

Sansa hadn’t been nervous before. She’d been eager to meet Lya Snow for a long time. Even before she and Jon had dated, it was hard not to aspire to be a glamourous, jet set, writer. And her teenage self-had been particularly (and rather stupidly) taken with the idea of Jon’s parents tragic love story of adultery and spurned suiters.

But this morning, the weight of it all had hit her.

What kind of man gets engaged to a woman who hasn’t met his mother? What if Lya found some great fault in Sansa or her family? She rested her hand briefly on her belly, it was well and truly too late for second thoughts, if Jon or his mother had any.

Not that Jon would. Of course not. If she hadn’t been sure of that, she wouldn’t have moved to White Harbor with him, wouldn’t have bought a condo with him, wouldn’t have said yes, wouldn’t have gotten so lax with her birth control.

But an unhappy mother-in-law…

So she looked around the guest suite that had been set up for Lya, and tried to find any fault she could fix.

Her mother stood next to her, a slightly pitying smile on her face.

“Soap…?” She asked, flinging her head around the bathroom, not seeing it.

“In the soap dish,” Catelyn pointed it out.

“Did the towel warmer get fixed?”

“No, but we replaced it a couple of months ago.”

Sansa nodded, before turning back to the bedroom proper.

The bed was crisply made. “What if she has some kind of allergy? Should we have gotten hypoallergenic pillows and bedding?” She paced towards the bed, thought she had the presence of mind to not rip the clothes off it. “Should I go out and get some.”

“No,” Said her mother firmly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, “Under no circumstances should you do that.” She tried to maneuver them to sit on the bed, but at the sound of distress Sansa made at wrinkling the bedding, she instead sat them on the padded bench that sat beneath a painting of blue roses on the wall. 

“What you can do is take a couple of long breaths, and calm down. And tell me what’s got you so worried.”

“Nothing,” She said too quickly, “I’m fine, really.”

“So it isn’t about the baby.”

“You…”

“I wasn’t sure yesterday.” her mother said, “But you said the smell of turkey was making you sick, and you haven’t asked for orange juice at breakfast. And those were the exact food aversions I developed with you.”

“Really,” She hasn’t known that, only had really clear memories of her mother’s pregnancy with Rickon, which had basically ended with six months of the Starks eating only fish because of the reactions the smell of all other meat was causing her.

“Yes,” Catelyn smiled, “But I wasn’t sure until I heard you hadn’t had anything to drink last night.”

“Please don’t say anything,” Sansa said quickly, “We’re going to tell everyone tonight at dinner.”

“Of course.” Catelyn promised, “Now, what about the baby is making this so hard.”

“I’m pregnant with her first grandchild,” She said, “That’s going to be her introduction to me. No easing into the relationship. No chance for her to get use to me. She meets me, and immediately she knows it's forever.”

Her mother looked thoughtful. “Do you have any idea how terrified Jon was, the first time he came home after the two of you started dating?”

“What?”

“Jon, according to your sister, who I believe was the only one at the time who knew the two of you were together, said Jon was absolutely dead scared to come to Winterfell.”

“Jon loves Winterfell as much as the rest of us,” Sansa said. He felt like he belonged here. He even looked like he belonged here.

“He does,” Catelyn agreed, “But he also had to tell us he was deflowering our daughter. We had known and love him since he was twelve. No one was good enough for you, but he was far and away as close as we could have hoped you’d get.” She smirked “He was too scared to tell Robb,” That Sansa had known, “But your brother had his own ideas. He just knew things with Harry had ended badly, and was eager to make things right for you. And he had determined that Jon was the only man good enough for you. He even got your dad to agree on that count.”

Sansa did remember that. The only one who was more supportive of her and Jon’s relationship then her older brother was her dad. When the mood struck the family, all of them would tease him that it was just because Jon was basically a carbon copy of him.

“Robb had gone so far as to recruit your brothers into some scheme to set you and Jon up. It wasn’t until he tried to get Arya on board that she told us. A full day before you two turned up an announced it. If you ever wondered why Ned didn’t cry then, it was because he’d been given advanced warning.” Catelyn considered, “He’s definitely going to cry tonight.”

“I know.” Sansa agreed.

“But the point of all of this is that we had plenty of time to adjust with Jon, and he was still scared. So it's totally normal to feel that way, but things will work out.”

“Because things always work out?” Sansa tried.

“Not all things,” Catelyn said, “But this I’m pretty sure will.” She rested her hand on Sansa’s belly, over her skirt.

_Not all things…_

“You’re sure Dad will cry tears of joy?” She asked, after a moment, “And not flashback to the last unmarried Stark girl to come home pregnant or something.”

Her aunt, who was barely spoken about, but who had come home from a school break at barely eighteen to announce that she was going to be a mother.

Her dad’s beloved sister, who had left Winterfell and never come back after a row with her own father, and Sansa’s late Uncle Brandon.

“I promise,” Catelyn said, “His sister is going to be the furthest thing from his mind tonight.”

***

They found Robb where Sansa and Jon had left him earlier, still on the couch in the media room, groaning every time the documentary about Bran the Builder got even a little louder.

“You are going to make a horrible impression on Jon’s mom.” Catelyn said, with a wink at her daughter, “She might decide he needs a new best friend.”

Robb waved a hand dismissively, not moving any other muscle of his body, “Who else would want him?” He asked.

“Sam Tarly,” Arya offered.

“Satin, Edd, Stannis Baratheon.” That earned a hearty laugh.

“Arya Stark,” Rickon suggested, and she shrugged in the affirmative.

“Theon Greyjoy if you didn’t get him that expense report to him before you got to hungover to move.” Catelyn offered. And Robb shot up straight, before slamming his eyes shut again and forcing his face into the couch cushions.

“You know I sent that out yesterday, Mom.” He whined, “That was mean.”

She chucked and did not apologize. And yet wondered where Arya got her irreverence. “Maybe Sansa Snow.”

Sansa cackled at that, after a beat, Arya joined her. Robb’s moan might have actually been a laugh in disguise. Or maybe just annoyance as their pitch.

“I don’t get it,” Rickon said after a moment.

Catelyn’s brows knit together, “Me neither. Are you not a candidate for his new best friend?”

“Of course,” Sansa said, “But not Sansa _Snow._ ”

She and Arya laughed again.

“Are you not going to take his last name?” Catelyn seemed genuinely mystified by that.

That brought Sansa up short.

“Definitely not.” She wrinkled her nose. “Honestly, I don’t like it. And the only one who doesn’t like it more then me, is Jon.”

“How can Jon not like Snow?” Rickon asked, “It's like the quintessential northern name. And the only person more quintessentially northern then Jon is Dad.”

Sansa frowned, but Arya asked first, “You mean you don’t know?”

“Know what?” Asked Rickon.

“Snow’s not Jon’s real last name.” She said, “He just uses it professionally, because he hates his dad.”

Sansa tried to remember when she’d learned that. Certainly before they’d started dating.

“I didn’t know that,” Catelyn said, quietly now. Looking around at Sansa, Robb, and Arya.

“Really?” Sansa asked, she’d have thought it’d have come up.

But Catelyn was looking at Robb, “I thought you became friends because of your last names.”

“Yeah,” Robb said, and he looked pained having to think so much, “Because S is next to T.”

“What on earth is Jon’s last name?” Catelyn asked after a second.

“Targaryen,” Sansa, Arya, and Robb answered as one.

“Like…” Rickon started, his mind clearly going to pale hair and violet eyes and number one pop artists.

“Yes,” Sansa nodded, “Exactly like that. And it would be good for you to NOT bring it up, like the rest of us, because again, not something he likes.”

Rickon nodded, and then turned to her with a gleam in his eye, “So you aren’t going to be Sansa Targaryen.”

She might have involuntarily retched a little just at the sound of it. But then thought about what Jon had said.

“Honestly,” And Sansa consider for a long moment before telling them this, “He’s trying to work up the courage to asked Dad, but he actually wants to take my last name when we get married.”

Robb looked bemused, and Catelyn looked confused. Rickon looked like that was the most natural thing in the world. Rickon had been a baby when Jon had integrated himself into their family. He’d been nearly 10 before he understood that Jon wasn’t actually related to them.

“He wants to be Jon Stark, like the mythological prince?” Arya asked after a moment, she considered it, “Sansa, you are marrying a dork.”


	2. Every Unhappy Family is Unhappy in its Own Way

“Wow,” His mom said, as they drove through the Wintertown, “Everything is so different.”

Jon laughed, “It seems like it totally shifts between all of my visits.” He agreed, “That’s normally just a few months. When was the last time you were here?”

“You would have been three or so,” She said after a moment. “It was nothing like this.” She sighed, “But it's good to be back North. The snow, at least, never changes.”

“I don’t know how you stand being away,” He said, keeping his tone light, “I could barely deal with the heat of Gulltown.”

She just laughed. “That must be a Northman problem; I’ve heard that complaint before.” But she didn’t explain what she meant.

When they entered the Wintertown square, she smiled softly, “Now this hasn’t changed at all since I was a girl.” She said.

“No?” Jon asked.

“Nope, the light displays for the festival are even the same.”

“We should really explore some of your old haunts this week,” Jon offered, “Maybe we can see if the house you grew up in is still there.”

“No,” She said, “Don’t think we should do that.”

His mother had been kicked out of her house at age 18 by her father. She hadn’t even come back for his funeral, her mother had died when she was young. And She’d had no desire to return to Wintertown, save, apparently one trip when he was 3.

He wished she’d share at least pockets of her youth here with him, but by now he knew it was for naught. At least he could share something new with her. His beloved Winterfell, and the Starks and Sansa.

You could see Winterfell from quite a ways off, and a certain giddiness filled him as they approached. His mother had definitely seen it before; you couldn’t live in Wintrtown for your entire childhood and miss it.

It wasn’t far off the square, but when he turned down the connector, she tensed.

It got worse when he pulled up to the gate. He nodded at the security camera, given the time of day, Jory was probably watching. Then he frowned at his mother, before unrolled the window to punch in the gate code He’d known the one here since he was 14. He’d never been given any kind of key for Summerhall.

He couldn’t help the grin that broke over his face as he drove onto the property, even though he’d been there less than three hours before.

The Manor at the center of the property was several hundreds of years old, but the grounds were far older, resting on a spot were Bran the builder had supposedly built a great castle. Some ruins still dotted the area, and the archaeology apparently supported the legends.

You could see the massive weirwood tree from far beyond the godswood as you drove up.

It was perfect.

It was home. Far more than the townhouse that he’d shared more often than not with a nanny in White Harbor. 

“Jon, please, by the gods, tell me you are dating the groundskeeper’s daughter, or something.”

“What, no, Sansa.” She had to know his fiancée’s name. “Sansa Stark, it’s her parents’ house.”

He glanced at her as he pulled into the garage. Her jaw was clenched. Her lips were pulled into a thin line. Her entire face had gone pale.

“Mom?”

He pulled the car to a stop and unbuckled. But his mother was shaking. Actually, physically shaking.

For no reason Jon could see.

“Mom what’s wrong.”

She didn’t say anything.

The minutes stretch out.

He grasp one of her hands, and she squeezes his hand to the point of pain.

“Mom, what’s going on.”

“We’re in Winterfell,” She said.

“Yeah,” Jon said, “This is Sansa’s family’s house. She’s one of _those_ Starks.”

It was a joke among the family. Everywhere one of them went, they’d say Stark, and people would ask if it meant _Stark-Stark,_ one of the richest, oldest families in all of Westeros.

If Jon didn’t hate it so much, he might have made one about himself, Targaryen, like _those_ Targaryens. With the incest and the madness and the pop songs.

“She’s Eddard’s daughter.” His mother said, but she sounded almost dizzy. Far away.

“Yeah, Ned’s great. You’ll like him.” He said anxiously.

She didn’t respond.

“Come one,” Jon said, “Let’s go inside. If you aren’t feeling up to things you can lay down for a little bit. Or I can get Nan to make you something to eat. She makes the best food.”

“Nan?” She whispered. But she didn’t move.

Jon got out of the car and walked around to her door, opening it for her. She had at least unbuckled her seatbelt. He took her arm and helped her climb down from the SUV, it wasn’t far, and she wasn’t the smallest woman, but he wasn’t sure what was happening. Or what to do about it, he just tried to shepherd her towards the house.

His mother’s eyes grazed throughout the garage. Landing on a classic sporty number by the door. It was grey, with running wolves stenciled on the side. It had been Ned’s brother’s pride and joy, and when he’d died Ned had never had the heart to get rid of it.

Jon had gone joyriding in it many times, with Robb and Theon and Arya and on one memorable occasion a seven year old Rickon and a tiny Shaddydog.

In college once, they’d been caught by Ned. And he’d just smiled sadly and said they needed to be careful, but that Brandon would have liked to know the car was still bringing people, his nephews, joy.

He could tell his mother that story later; he pulled her along towards the door.

“You look like my brothers.” She said. Jon froze.

“Mom,” He said, very slowly, “I look like you.” She didn’t have brothers.

“Yes,” She agreed, “We all looked alike. All four of us. Always. But you look so much like them. Like the three of them mixed together. Or one of those face combining apps.

“Mom, you’re an only child.” He said, softly. They didn’t have family. It was them against the world. She use to tell him that, when he’d been very young, before she’d started traveling for or. That he was her family. All that she wanted and all that she needed.

“No, I just tell people that.” She said, “I had three brothers. I only have two now.” She stopped and a slight look of horror crossed her face, “I think I have two. I haven’t...I haven’t heard in a while.”

 _You don’t have any_. He didn’t say, instead “Well, you’ve had a long day, why don’t you get inside and lay down. Tomorrow you can meet everyone, and then we can maybe go for a ride. They have stables here. And the loveliest horses.”

He managed to get her inside. And was met with a smiling Bran.

“Hey, we saw you drive up. We were wondering what was taking you so long?”

“My mom’s not feeling well, I think she might need to go lie down.”

Bran’s attention shifted focus and he blinked, “Is that what Arya’s going to look like in 30 years?”

He looked like Arya and he looked like his mother, so he supposed Arya did look like his mom, too. They all had the same brown hair. The same long face. The same gray eyes. “Um, yeah, maybe.” Jon responded. “Mom, this is Bran Stark, he’s on of Sansa’s younger brothers. Bran, this is my mom, Lyanna Snow.”

“Bran?”

“Or, well, Brandon.” Bran offered awkwardly, “But, Bran.”

Lyanna nodded. And Bran clearly caught on to the tension.

“Come on mom, I’ll show you to your room. Sansa and Cat made sure it was all set up for you, I even told them to go with the one with painting of winter roses on the wall, because I know how much you love them?” He looked at Bran, ready to ask him to relay and and his mother's absence to his family for a bit. 

“The one with the girl at the tourney, or the one with them growing in the glass gardens?” She asked.

Jon turned and gawked at her.

Winterfell was home to both of those paintings. The one in the guest room set aside for his mother featured the blue roses growing in ancient glass gardens. The other one hung in one of the formal sitting rooms that Jon had only been in for hide and seek games.

And he had no idea how she could know that.

Bran looked confused too, but any of his questions were cut off by a commotion coming from the hall. Voices that sounded like Ned and Arya and Rickon and Catelyn.

“Bran,” He heard Ned before he actually made it into the room, “Did you find Jon? Everyone’s very excited to meet the elusive Mrs. Snow.”

He was smiling when his eyed landed on Jon, but the second he saw Jon’s mother, all the color drained from his face.

Their eyes locked. Identical gray staring at each other from too pale faces.

In turn Arya, Rickon, and Catelyn all seemed ready to say something, but couldn’t parse what was going on anymore then Jon could.

“Lyanna,” Ned finally said, after the silence grew oppressive.

“Eddard.” She said back, barely unclenching her jaw to get the word out.

Ned took a few deep breaths. “I never thought I’d see you here again.”

“I never planned on coming back. I kind of doubted I’d be wanted.” His mother raised a dark eyebrow. He’d seen that expression a hundred times, goading. A challenge.

Ned shook his head, “Lya,” And he might have been choking back a sob. “You’ve always been wanted.” He said. Him mother gave a little hiss, and Ned’s shoulders fell. “ _I_ always wanted you.” He shook his head once, ruefully, and then took a step towards her. He raised a hand, as thought he was going to reach out to her, and then thought better of it and returned it to his side. “I always wanted you, here,” He repeated, “You, and your.” He stopped abruptly, eyes going wide, before the full weight of his gaze fell to Jon.

Jon had seen that intense look on Ned’s face before, but never directed at him. Not even when he’d admitted to dating Sansa. Not even when he’d unexpectedly shown up to ask for his blessing to propose.

“What’s going on?” Sansa asked. She was wearing the slippers Meera had sent for her birthday. Blue with little gray wolves doting them. They silenced her footsteps and Jon hadn’t heard her coming.

“I think we’re finding out this is one of those weird movies where a couple gets together, only to find out that like thirty something years before two of their parents had some sort of passionate love affair. And when the parents meet each other again for the first time, everything gets awkward as hell.”

“What?” Squeaked Sansa, just as Catelyn snapped “Rickon.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Bran said after a moment of considering both Lyanna and Ned. “We aren’t Targaryens.”

Jon winced involuntarily.

Arya reached out and wacked Bran’s shoulder, causing him to wince too.

“What?” He whined.

“I know _you_ know better than that.” She snapped.

“Bran,” Rickon interrupted them, “What do you mean,”

Bran motioned to Jon’s mother and Ned, “They are _very_ obviously related.”

There was nothing obvious about that, as far as Jon was concerned. They had the same eyes, the same hair color, the same face shape the same mouth and nose. But so did he and Arya.

“Hello, Lyanna.” Came the quiet voice of Howland Reed. Jon hadn’t noticed his approach, either. Judging by the way Ned started, neither had he. “It's good to see you.”

His mom seemed to blink at the address

“What are you doing here?”

“I heard you were coming,” Howland said, “You never got back to me last month, and I know how you can be about replying to email. I figured this was the easiest way to get in contact with you.”

Ned seemed to laugh in spite of himself, “You were always a hard one to pin down.”

“Ned,” Catelyn finally said, walking up directly next to him with a steely look in her blue eyes, “Since you seem to have caught us at a disadvantage, why not introduces us to your...acquaintance.”

“Cat,” Ned said, hesitant, a plea, but she didn’t give an inch so he sighed, and nodded, “Cat, I don’t know if you remember, but this is Lyanna, my sister.”

The air might have left the room.

“Lyanna, my wife, Catelyn, and our children, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Rickon.”

His mother blinked at Catelyn for a long moment. Trying to process what had just been said as surely as Jon was.

“You know, when we talked on the phone, gods it’s been like twenty years now, I thought there was no way you could have been the Cat Tully who both of my brothers fell in love with.” She shook her head, and laughed without humor. “That was a stupid assumption.”

Catelyn just nodded, as though any of what was being discussed made since. “It was.” She agreed, and then turned to Jon, “This is your mother?”

He could only nod.

“Are you confused?”

He nodded again.

“Alright, good to know.” She turned to Howland. “You do not seem so confused. What’s going on.”

That seemed to set his mom and Ned on edge, and they both turned to Howland. He suddenly looked small, though he’s always been rather short, under the twin gazes.

“You’ve both had me keeping secrets for you since long before...everything,” Howland reminded them, “You both asked me to keep this one too. Even after I suggested otherwise, many times. For the last 30 years.”

“But…”

“But what, Lyanna,” And he sounded wary in a way he never had before, “I’ve been begging you to talk to your brothers for 30 years. You always demanded I not share more than the fact that you were alive with them. You always said you didn’t want to know anything other than their physical wellbeing in turn.”

Ned and his mother turned to look at each other again, eyes meeting for a long moment until his mother’s face snapped away, full of all kinds of angry confusion when she landed on Jon.

“So, this is who you’ve been spending all your time with since you were twelve?” She asked, like she hadn’t signed permission slips for it. Like it was his fault she apparently hadn’t actually paid attention to the names of the people who she was in trusting with the care of her son. “At Winterfell.”

“Yes,” Jon managed to choke out, before her gaze shifted again, taking in everyone’s faces.

“Which one are you engaged to?” She asked him.

Slowly, hesitantly, Sansa raised her hand a little, her ring sparkling in the hall’s sunlight. “I’m Sansa.” She said.

“Your cousin.” Lyanna said flatly.

And the weight of it all hit. The long lost Lyanna Stark, Ned’s tragically estranged sister, was his mother. Which meant that Eddard Stark was his uncle.

Which meant that the unfortunate baby that had driven a perfect family apart was him.

He’d always known his birth ruined one supposedly idyllic family life. But now it appeared it was two.

He’d always assumed the Snows, his mother’s family, were like the Targaryens, an absolute mess playacting as something else, just perhaps without the money his father’s family used to hide all there problems.

But the Starks, he knew, were different. The Starks were better. He knew that everything about the estrangement with Ned’s sister had hurt him.

They didn’t deserve that.

Tears pricked his eyes. He pushed them back.

He looked at Sansa. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“I mean, it does explain a lot.”

“What does this explain exactly, Arya?” Cried a nearly hysterical voice. It took a second for Jon to realize he was the one who asked.

Bran answered, “Why you and Arya look so alike. That weird coincidence where we had a cousin who was fathered by a Targaryen we’d never met, and your dad was a Targaryen too. Literally everything involving you and the direwolves, the fact that you and dad are basically the same person…” He trailed off with a shrug.

Ned didn’t seem to want to look at him either.

“I think tensions are running a little high, right now.” Catelyn offered, “Why don’t we sit down, take a deep breath. I’ll have Nan bring some tea.”

“Old Nan really still works here?” Lyanna asked, as though that was relevant.

“Of course,” Ned said, with another small attempt at a smile. “She’ll want to see you.” He offered, “You can ask her to make her winter rosewater scones that you love.”

The blue rosewater scones had always been Jon’s favorite of Nan’s treats.

“NO!” She snapped, “I’m not…” She didn’t seem to know what she wasn’t, just that she was firm in it.

“Lyanna please.” Ned took a step forward, and she took a very deliberate step back.

“Why is everyone yelling? You woke me up,” Came Robb’s voice down the hall. They really should move somewhere more comfortable, like Catelyn suggested.

Robb stopped short when he found them.

“What are you all doing?” He asked, “This is weird.”

No one responded to him for several long minutes.

“What did I miss?” He tried again

“Jon’s our cousins.” Rickon offered.

“What?” Robb said, “That’s not how brother-in-laws work, dude.”

“What he means,” And Jon was surprised his voice wasn’t shaking, “Is that, my mother, and your dad’s long lost sister, are the same person.” He flicked his hand at her, “This is Lyanna.” He motioned back “This is Robb.”

He didn’t have must else to say. Neither did Robb.

But at least Sansa seemed willing to look at him again.

Their eyes met, Tully blue to gray. Stark gray.

“You didn’t..?”

“No!” He cut her off sharply. Too sharply. It wasn’t her fault. But surely she couldn’t think that of him, that he had known for 18 years, and not told them. Not claimed the Starks for what he had always wanted them to be. 

Sansa nodded once. Grimace and looked around. “I’m not feeling well, if you’ll excuse me.” And then left as quickly as was gracefully possible.

“She didn’t look upset,” Arya said to Jon quickly, “It's probably just the morning sickness still.” Her words, like most of the events of the last...how long had it been minutes, hours he didn’t know, but they did not fully compute in his head.

“Its four in the afternoon,” Rickon said.

Arya rolled her eyes “It doesn’t actually just happen in the morning, that’s just the colloquial terms. Nausea and vomiting during pregnancy can happen all day. I looked it up?”

“Why?”

“When I realized that Sansa was pregnant I wanted to know what to expect.” Arya always said things like that so casually. So normally.

“Sansa’s pregnant?” Asked Robb dumbly, Jon couldn’t blame him, he’d known, and Arya’s words still sounded weird to his ears.

But yes. Sansa was pregnant. Sansa was his fiancée. Sansa was pregnant with his child. It all seemed far away at the moment. But that was why his mother was even here. To meet them, to celebrate. Because Sansa was going to be his wife.

Sansa Stark, who was his cousin.

“How do you know Sansa’s pregnant?” Catelyn asked. His Aunt Catelyn.

“Because Sansa hasn’t had anything to drink when I’ve been around the last four months, and she’s been getting nauseous and throwing up a lot lately, at all hours of the day. And she’s been wearing baggier clothes. And when I was staying with them in White Harbor two weeks ago, I heard them talking about it because the walls at their townhouse are really thin.” Arya said, and then she bit her lip, looking at Jon guiltily “Damn, I’m sorry. I meant not to say anything. I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

“I think the surprise was already ruined,” Bran commented dryly, “By the other way our families growing, apparently.”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. They were supposed to being having one of Nan’s famous honeyed chickens. Everyone was supposed to be chatting happily, his mother fitting in with the Starks like she was always meant to be a part of their life. He was supposed to get everyone's attention. And they were supposed to tell everyone.

Or maybe Arya was supposed to jump the gun, by just a few minutes, but enough to steal some thunder. Something to make them all laugh later, even if Catelyn and Sansa rolled identical eyes in the moment.

Regardless, then there was supposed to be hugs and excitement, wishes of congratulations. Questions about names and genders and nurseries and nannies and when they were moving closer to Wintertown.

Ned Stark, a man he’d admired since he was twelve. A man who he loved so much more than his own father, was supposed to cry happy tears.

He wasn’t supposed to look at Jon in abject horror.

Jon got Ned Stark for an _uncle_ and he looked a Jon like it was the worst thing he’d ever known.

“You got Sansa _Stark_ pregnant out of wedlock,” Came his mother’s voice, harsh over even the fog in his brain, “Jon Aemon Targaryen, I thought I raised you to be better than to be your father.”

Something snapped then. Something he hadn’t even known could break. Surrounded by all these people. Strangers, family, or something else.

He walked away.

Walked through the very small sea of far far too many people, several of whom reached out to him as he passed.

He walked out to the grounds of Winterfell.

He walked out to the land that his family had lived on for thousands and thousands of years.

***

Sanda had locked herself in the second floor bathroom, thrown up her lunch, and very heroically not cried.

She’d retouched her lipstick and mascara, made sure a hair wasn’t out of place, and had gone back downstairs, to meet her aunt.

They’d moved into the parlor with two parallel couches. Her father and Lyanna both sat dead center on either one.

Howland Reed sat next to Lyanna, but everyone else stood around looking awkward. Barring Robb, who’d passed out again in one of the chairs.

And Jon, who wasn’t there at all.

Everyone had looked up when she walked into the room but Lyanna, who’s eyes remained fixed to the painting that hung over her father’s head. The one with the dark haired girl crowned in roses astride a horse, lance and weirwood shield at the ready. Her mother and Arya both seemed to have something to say.

She didn’t even stop to chat, she simply looked everyone in the eye in turn, and then spun on her heels and went to find Jon.

He hadn’t come into their room while she fixed her makeup, so she skipped that. He wasn’t in the guest room he’d claimed as his own at age 13 and was still littered with his memories either.

That meant he probably wasn’t in the house. There were plenty of places to hide inside, but after about age 20, most of them lost their appeal if you weren’t Arya or a little chemically altered.

So she set off to the grounds. He wasn’t in the crypts, seeing the stone faces of her (their) ancestors.

He wasn’t in the kennels, playing with the wolves. She had really really hoped he’d be petting Ghost.

The Starks had been breeding direwolves for thousands of years. Great beasts of things that required full time care and special permits that probably wouldn’t even be approved if it weren’t for grandfather clauses and money. They were animals, but had a tendency to be attached to whatever Starks had claimed them and the highly paid animal specialists who cared for them at other times.

That Jon had so effortlessly and quickly bonded with the runt of their litter, who he’d been allowed to christen Ghost, was a point of pride with him.

And if he could just have that reminder…

She reached to pet Ghost’s head and scratched Lady’s back absentmindedly with her other hand.

Jeyne had been uneasy with them when Sansa had shown her, and she’d been the bravest of Sansa’s lot of friends. Arya’s rash group of roughnecks had all seemed to appreciate them aesthetically, but backed away after each had patted Nymeria’s head exactly once, to prove they could, she supposed.

Some people were better, as long as Robb had him well in hand, Theon didn’t mind Grey Wind. The Reeds were known to go so far as play with Summer, when Bran was around to keep close watch. Osha growled back as Shaggy when it was needed. And Mom had never objected to the presence of giant, prehistoric monsters in her home as far as Sansa knew.

But all the non-Starks had always thought the wolves were fearsome. All of them but Jon.

Who’d cuddled Ghost as a pup, played with him still on every visit, and would have probably let him and Lady both sleep in their bed every night.

Everyone who wasn’t a Stark thought the wolves were fearsome.

Ghost’s red eyes, on his snow white face weren’t scary, Sansa thought. They reminded her of Jon’s in an odd sort of way, though the colors couldn’t be more different. Perceptive, but kind. The bleeding eyes of weirwoods were scarier. That was a red and white gaze that stood watching.

She gave the wolves goodbye pets, promised to visit them later, and then set off to the godswood.

***

Sansa found him in front of the heart tree.

He’d been here for what felt like an hour, sitting cross legged in front of the old gods. And trying to temper his angriest thoughts, even in his own head.

How could his mother say that to him? Never once, as long as he could remember, not even when she’s scolded him as a child, had she called him by the name Targaryen. And to throw it at him now.

Over something he hadn’t known better about. Because she’d never told him.

(It was easier to think of that then the other thing. A Targaryen man getting a Stark girl pregnant out of wedlock. The original sin he still paid for. They use to call bastards Snow. They didn’t give them their parents names, marked them as outsiders, as different, as wrong. Was that what they’d done? Created another Snow.)

He heard someone crunching through the leaves and didn’t have to look up to know it was Sansa, though he couldn’t actually tell her footsteps from others in the woods.

“You’re a hard man to track down.” She said, walking next to him, but just standing, staring at the face. “I wasn’t sure where you’d go.”

“I came right here,” He said, “I’m not sure where else I could go.”

“I thought maybe the kennels or the crypts.” Sansa offered.

“Those are only supposed to be for Starks,” He said absently, he’d ignored the rules before, of course. But he knew them.

“Well, yeah, so this would be the perfect excuse.”

Right, it was only supposed to be for Starks. Like Ned’s sister Lyanna. And her only son.

Him.

“On the bright side, I don’t think I’m going to ask Ned’s permission before taking your name when we get married. I have as much right to it as you.” She looked down sharply and the look she gave him, intense and full of questions rooted him to the spot.

It hadn’t even occurred to him, despite everything, that this might change even the fundamentals.

The engagement, his place in Sansa’s family, even the baby. It might all go away right now.

And the thought made him breathless. Made him dizzy. Made him sick.

He had wanted to be a Stark, to be truly and completely a part of this family since he was 12.

This perfect family with two parent and siblings that loved you and giant wolves you treated like dogs. This family without scandals and heartache.

He’s wanted that for 18 years. He still wanted that.

But he wanted to be Sansa Stark’s husband so much more.

Wanted to wake up next to her in the morning and go to sleep with her at night. He wanted to hear her hopes for the future and worries for the present and complaints about the past every day for the rest of his life. He wanted her steady presence by his side, wanted her calm voice behind him. Wanted to offer his in return. He wanted her humor, her intelligence, her strength. Her.

He wanted to be the father of her children. He wanted her to be the mother of his. He wanted to build with her what he saw in her parents, a marriage of devotion, a family of blinding love.

And if it meant embracing being a Targaryen, marrying his cousin, to do it, he was more than happy to order new business card with his father's last name.

“That might have been a poor joke,” He said, after a beat.

“Do you still want to get married?” Sansa asked quietly.

“Do you?”

She huffed a little, indigent. “I asked first.” She’d done that since she was a child. Jon had always imagined their daughters doing the same thing.

It was hard not the smile a little.

“I’m a Targaryen,” he said, though the very words ran counter to him, “It takes more than a little incest to scare me off.”

Sanas smiled at that, coming to sit beside him in front of the heart tree. “I”m pretty sure we just established you’re a Stark, for realsies.” Despite everything, it made his heart light.

But still.

“Aerys and Rhaella were first cousin.” At least his father couldn’t say anything, or Dany.

Sansa looked thoughtful, “My grandparents,” She grimaced, “Our grandparents...”

“Rickard and Lyarra,” Jon supplied.

“See, I know you didn’t know your mother’s parents names before today, so I’m going to decide to find it charming that you remember mind, and not a little weird.” She said, with a smile, then she reached out grand took his hand, grasping it in her lap. “But yeah, them. Lyarra’s maiden name was Stark.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were cousins.” Sansa said, “Not first cousins. Once removed or second cousins or something, but definitely cousins. Honestly, if you’d ever lamented about Targaryens and incest to Dad, he’s have probably told you that...and also probably have figured out that you were his nephew.”

He was Ned Stark’s nephew. And Benjen’s too. Robb and Arya and Bran and Rickon’s cousin. A Stark, Sansa said, for realises. And apparently, not the first one to marry their cousin.

Assuming she felt like he did.

“Do you?” He asked, in a rush of air, “Still want to marry me, I mean.”

She lifted the hand grasping his, and twisted slightly, and his arm, to give herself a view of her engagement ring, “I do.” She said, and then squeaked in pleased surprise at her choice of words. “If you’re sure.”

“I’ve never been surer of anything.” He said, “I just want to be your husband. More than anything. Certainly more than being a Stark.”

Sansa looked struck speechless for a moment. Clearly surprised.

She leaned in close to him, their foreheads nearly touching. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

She practically jumped on top of him then, and he grasped her tightly as he fell back, to brace the (admittedly minimal) impact.

They kissed in front the weirwood. They kissed in front of the eyes of the Old Gods that had watched their ancestors kiss for generations.

They kissed in front of the heart tree they’d bring their child too to be named in the not so distant future before the Old Gods.

“There you two are,” They kissed, apparently, in front of meddling cousin/siblings who couldn’t butt out. “You are so lucky Bran has a six sense about where people are, or it would have taken us forever to find you.”

“What are you doing here?” He groaned, as he and Sansa sat up from their prone positions. He’d really, desperately wanted some quiet and solitude. Sansa couldn’t interfere with that. But Arya and Bran, as much as he loved them like siblings, like cousins, definitely could. 

Sansa didn’t look upset though, she looked thoughtful giving her brother and sister a long look, and then glancing at the tree. “You know,” She said, “historically, to be married, two people just hard to swear to be wed in front of the heart tree and some witnesses.”

Jon glanced into the face that had watched his family for millennia. He looked at Arya and Bran’s eager faces. He looked at Sansa.

It would be beautiful. It would be meaningful. It would be magical and perfect and immediate.

“That’s not legal,” Jon said.

“Yeah, no it's not,” Arya agreed, like she knew anything about northern law, beyond what exactly ones rights were when they got arrested for protesting. “That’s why Robb’s bringing the car around. If we leave now, we can get to the clerk's office in time for you to apply for a license.”

“They close at five,” Sansa said as Arya offered her a hand up, and Jon followed.

“I know, but if we leave now we can get their right before closing. I already texted Jeyne and told her we had a marriage license emergency. She responded with the text equivalent of a squee, you’ll be proud when I show you later. Now come on people, hustle hustle. We have very romantic paperwork to get through today.”

They walked briskly between Arya and Bran out to the main drive way, were Robb could be scene sitting in an idle SUV.

“But what about…”

“Howland’s an ordained Northern officiant,” Bran said, Ned was too, Jon thought, but Bran didn’t mention that. “He promises to oversee the wedding tonight, once we get the paperwork done.”

“I don’t think everyone's going to be ok with that.” Jon said, remembering Ned’s look of horror, his mother's words.

He pulled the car door open for Sansa, and Arya rolled her eyes and she ran to the other side and pulled open her own door and climbed in.

“Meera and Rickon and Howland and Mom promised to make it ok before we left.” Bran promised, while Arya just snapped at Robb to drive very fast.

“How is mom?” Sansa asked, the safest topic. The least involved with whatever this was.

“She’s fine,” Robb promised brightly. “I think mostly she feels silly for the years she worried Jon was Dad’s love child.”

“Wait, what?” Because what?

“I’m sure that’s a hilarious story that Robb can recount in vivid detail during his best man toast. But right now, less anecdotes, more driving beyond the legal limits.” Arya said.

Hand in hand, Jon and Sansa Stark road into the sunset.

And towards the most romantic paperwork they would ever do in their lives. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The working title for this was Kissing Cousins. Which was very clear and a bunch of people guessed in the comments.  
> Mostly, I kept seeing the "Jon and Sansa/the Starks aren't related" tag in Jonsa fics and kept thinking, but them being cousins is half the fun and this fic would be amazing if they were related. So I wrote the thing.
> 
> the html stuff was doing weird things when I was previewing this earlier, so if you see something wrong, let me know. 
> 
> Check out my [tumblr](http://darkmagyk.tumblr.com/).


	3. Unhappy in its Own Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 was suppose to be the end. That was the plan from the beginning. And then I finished part 2 and promptly had an idea for what would happen next. I got several comments requesting a continuation. So this part and part 4, and then I can go back to not being able to write anything 
> 
> Thank you.

They were married just after dusk.

The half moon shined off the dark pond, but they were more married by the flash and phone lights held by Sansa’s siblings then by the star light.

She was not married in front of any of her friends. She was married without her father. Without her uncles. Without her aunt. Aunts.

The fabric swatches she’d been going through with her mother were forgotten in favor of a warm sweater and a green skirt that wouldn’t show dirt from kneeling.

Her bouquet of winter roses where picked last minute by Arya from the glass garden.

Rickon had liberated the wolves from the kennel, so their felt like more of a crowd.

Her brothers and Jon wore jeans, and only Jon had bothered to put a button down over his t-shirt.

Sansa hadn’t seen her dad or Lyanna since they’d come back from the clerk's office.

As the little wedding party walked out to the wood, Robb steered Jon to one side, likely to try and force some sort of last minute “if you hurt my sister chat.”

Her mother wondered up to her, “It’s a pretty night,” she offered, “after the baby’s born we can throw a proper wedding. We’ll invite all your friend, all the family who can’t be here…” She smiled, a little forced, but not a lie, “I know you’ve both gotten impatient with all the planning, but this will give you the best of both worlds.”

She just nodded, and the group settled before the heart tree. 

There was no real order to it all. Even makeshift weddings in movies seemed all pretty and planned out, but no one fanned out in a perfectly balanced circle around them.

They kneeled before the tree, and Howland stood before them. But Arya stood too close. Rickon too far away, surrounded by six wolves, and trying to keep them quiet and still, a task he couldn’t even really manage for himself. Her mother seemed to be the most composed, but Robb, next to her, was fidgety, and jumped at every noise not made by the wolves. Bran seemed more interested in the heart tree then the wedding. Meera seemed suddenly awkward.

But Jon just looked at Sansa.

Jon was just interested in Sansa.

And when it was over, he kissed her at Howland’s command.

Jon had kissed Sansa a thousand times, in all the ways and manners it was possible for a person to kiss another person.

Jon had kissed Sansa in the godswood of Winterfell.

Jon had kissed Sansa in front of the heart tree, in the sight of the old gods, where generations of Stark kisses had happened, preformed by generations of Starks.

Now Jon kissed her as her husband.

It was the same kiss he’d given her earlier that day, the same one he’d given the day before, and the week before and a month. It was the same kiss he’d given when she’d told him she was pregnant and when she said yes to his proposal, and when they closed on their townhouse.

It was the same kiss and everything was different now because she had Jon Aemon Snow Targaryen Stark as a husband, and it was too great and too monumental to not change everything.

He wanted her as much as she wanted him. And no estrangement or family feuds or even a little incest could stop them.

From the way he grasped her hand while they kissed, he could feel those thoughts going through her brain. And he felt the same way.

“When you’re done,” Arya said after a long time, where Sansa just immersed herself in her husband, “We still haven’t had dinner. And there is honeyed chicken, and also lemon cakes.”

So, the planned dinner for Jon’s mother became an impromptu wedding feast that was about as far from Sansa’s childhood imagination as was possible.

The chicken was reheated, the salad had wilted, and the small, round lemon cakes were only covered in powdered sugar. The simplest wedding feast in Stark memory.

When Nan dropped it off, she offered her congratulations and gave both Sansa and Jon hugs. But as she pulled away from Jon, she gave him a long, searching look. Like she could see a ghost in his dark eyes.

Sansa wondered if the return of Lyanna Stark would cause that kind of reaction a lot, even in people who had known Jon for nearly 20 years.

This was new and different. They’d been planning on facing the world married, on figuring out how to raise a kid. Now they had to do all of that in this new context. One of estranged parents and cousins and whatever else might be dragged up from the woodwork.

And their baby, not even really a person yet, would be born into that.

But then she looked at him, and he smiled at her, and he reached for her hand under the table, grasping it as they ate their cake.

They could do it together.

They weren’t wished off to an exciting honeymoon, after dinner they snuck off to their room, and collapsed on the bed together.

“Are you ok?” he asked, pulling her close.

“Of course,” She said, nuzzling at his neck, “What about you?”

“I got to be married to the love of my life,” He said, “Anything else is just fluff.”

“I’m going to tell Robb and Arya that finding out your dearest friends are your cousins isn’t important.” She teased, but stopped when she saw his face fall.

“What are you thinking?” She said.

He sighed, “I love you.” Was his only answer.

She scoffed, “I know that, but really, tell me. We got married for a reason. I want to hear it.”

He was quiet for several long moments, wrapping his arms even tighter around her, and burying his face in her hair. “I don’t want to ruin our wedding night with my brooding.” he muttered.

“You couldn’t,” She promised, moving her head so he couldn’t hide in her hair. “I happen to find your brooding very sexy.”

“Yeah?” He asked, smirking just a little bit, and slipping one of his hands up her pajama top.

“Oh yeah,” She said, “Nothing turns me on quite so much.”

She moaned as his lips met her neck, skipping straight past genteel kisses, and biting down at the junction where her neck met her shoulders. He worried the skin with his teeth for a good long while, before licking the sharp pain with his tongue to sooth it. He let up for just a second so he could fling her top off, and allowed her to do the same to his.

“Are you going to take a bite out of me,” She whimpered, as he attacked the other shoulder.

“I’m certainly going to try.” He said, fiddling with the drawstrings on her pants until she could kick them off.

“You should,” She said, guiding his mouth back down to her chest, and and crying out when he used his teeth like he meant it, scraping them over one breast and then the other, but avoiding her newly too sensitive nipples. 

“You have too.” She prompted. His hands began to massage their way down her sides and hips, but when he went to move his head, she pushed it back down. Held it in place. Kept his mouth, kept his teeth, on her. 

“You have too. You’re a Stark,” She told him, “You always have been but now you’re one twice over.” She moaned as he landed a particularly sharp bight under her left breast, “You’re a wolf. We’re both wolves, and wolves use their teeth.”

He let out a growl, low and deep and unlike any sound she’d ever heard him make before. And she worried, for a moment, that she’d made a mistake.

Early in their relationship, she’d made some reference to him being a dragon. She had known, even then, how much he didn’t like being a Targaryen, didn’t like what his father's family was known for. But she’d also know that sometimes what men like in real life, and what they liked in bed were different. _And_ that men liked being compared to large, dangerous beasts while fucking.

It had gone badly.

This time he pulled back and looked at her. His brown hair was in disarray form where she’d grabbed him to keep his mouth on her, his gray eyes were blowns so wide as to be black, and on his face was the purest look of lust.

It sent a greater shiver of desire though her then even his brooding could.

“Turn over.” He growled.

“What?”

He leaned down and pulled her lips into a biting kiss, “If you’re a wolf” He said, “And I’m a wolf,” And he seemed to shiver at that very thought, “Then I want to fuck you like a wolf.” He nipped at her jaw, and then pulled back again, “Turn over.”

He didn’t need to tell her again, she rolled onto her stomach. She wouldn’t be able to do that soon, but he didn’t let her rest that way for a moment. He pulled her up on hands and knees, bringing her back flush against his chest, giving her something solid to rest against. He braced one hand next to her’s and the other he used to ripe her panties right off her body.

She was glad she’d gone with her work-a-day underwear today, instead of putting on something nice for their wedding, because he’d have been no more gentle with an expensive piece of lace, and then she might have felt bad instead of thrilled as he discarded the ruined fabric.

He pushed her legs apart, and his hand found her cunt, teasing the lips briefly before sticking a finger directly inside, testing.

“It appears you’re already dripping for me, wolf girl,” He growled in her ear, before he bit at the back of her neck.

She saw the appeal of the wolf comparison, and moaned even before he pushed himself into her.

He was rough. Rougher then he’d been since she’d told him she was pregnant. He pumped in hard and fast, circling her clit with his thumb with as much rhythm he could manage while also biting at her back.

She moaned and he moaned and they played wolves in the ancient seat of the Kings of Winter.

When she was close, he moved his hand from her numb. She cried out at the lose, but he just started rubbing at her bump with his free hand.

“You’re a wolf,” He repeated, “And I’m a wolf.” He adjusted something in his stance, and then he wasn’t just pumping into her, he was hitting just the right spot in her inner walls. “And we’re going to have ourselves a little Stark pup. And once they’re born, I’m going to take you like a wolf. Again and again. Until we have another, and another, and another. A whole pack just for ourselves.”

When he returned to massaging her clit, she lasted only a few strokes, screaming his name as she came. He followed just a few pumps later, shooting into her, though his seed had already completed its ultimate purpose.

They cleaned up quickly when they were done, but didn’t bother to put back on bed clothes when they curled again together under her childhood blankets, and slept together for the first time as a married couple.

***

Jon woke up alone. A heart shaped sticky note stuck to Sansa’s pillow told him that she had gone to brunch with Beth and Jeyen as planned.

A glance at his phone found a text reminding him that they really owed Jeyne, and so she’d have to go and fill her in.

That also probably meant that the fact that Jon was the son of the long lost Lyanna Stark and therefore Sansa’s cousin would be all over Wintertown by lunch, and all over the North by tomorrow morning. And he wasn’t naive enough to not know that the Starks were a big deal in the North, and that the story would not be without interest. 

He sighed, but figured it would be for the best. Let them rip the bandaid off quickly. They were married, they were having a baby, and they were cousins. Next question.

He got ready for the day, wondering distantly where Robb might be this morning, when there was a knock on the door.

Who would even knock for this? Not one of the kids. Ned wouldn’t if he knew Jon was alone. Catelyn had southern manners though, or maybe Howland, or one of the staff, hoping to get confirmation about a rumor that was already coursing through Winterfell.

“Come in,” He said regardless, as he checked his shirt collar in the mirror.

He didn’t turn around when the door opened, so he saw his mother’s reflection in the mirror first.

She carried a tray in her hands, and he recognized Nan’s scones piled on top.

“I got yelled at by Nan this morning,” She said, walking in and shutting the door behind her, but not moving much beyond the threshold. “It was a weird flashback to being sixteen that I was not expecting.”

“What where you still doing at sixteen that would have gotten you in trouble with Nan?” Was the only thing he could think to ask. Even Rickon hadn’t ever upset her enough for that past age fourteen or so. 

“We blew up the kitchen,” She said, dismissively, like that wasn’t a big deal.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, we didn’t...their were still four walls when we were done, and I think only one of the ovans and the sink had to be replaced. It wasn’t that big a deal, not like the time Brandon drove through the shed...” She went to explain about how that had been so much worse, but Jon knew that story, and it struck him that everything he’d ever heard about Ned and Ben’s childhoods could now include his mother. And that those large holes where her childhood had been, now included his favorite place in the world, and his favorite family who lived their. “And really none of that matters,” She said finally, “But Nan did say we have the same favorite scones, and that I should bring you some.”

She walked towards him carefully, and he met her halfway. “Winter Rosewater?”

He took one and sat down on the bed, but she just stood there with the tray until he patted the place besides him. She sat down and balanced the tray on her lap, looking around at Sansa’s childhood bedroom, complete with powder blue walls and delicate pink stencil work.

“Don’t tell me this was your room?”

“What, no,” She shook her head, “Our rooms were a floor down.”

Jon wasn’t sure if he’d known that, “So where my room is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, my old room.” He said with a wave of his hand, “Its down there. We mostly stay in Sansa’s during visits because the ensuite is bigger.”

“You have a room here?”

“Of course,” He said, “After like the third consecutive vacation I spent here they started to feel bad for me in the stuffy guest rooms, so Cat let me decorate one.” He’d been thirteen, and done it up mostly in black. But Ghost had been born by then, and become the pet he hadn’t known he’d always wanted. So there was a rather large painting of a white wolf with shining red eyes hanging on the wall. It was an old Stark heirloom, and Ned had let Jon put it there. That was probably the moment when Jon went from liking his best friend’s dad, to not so secretly wishing Ned Stark was his own father.

His mom didn’t return his smile. She set the tray down on the bed, and then pulled him too her, wrapping her arms around him and not caring that he was probably getting scone crumbs on her shirt.

When she finally pulled back, there were tears in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Jon.” She said, and she sounded more broken then he’d ever heard.

“For what,” He hadn’t really wanted to talk about it yet, but from where he was standing, she had a pretty long list.

She winced, and clearly knew that too. “A lot of thing, obviously.” She said. She took his hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry I left you to be raised by strangers.” She said, “And I’m sorry that I left you to be raised by my brother, and wasn’t even paying enough attention to notice that’s what I was doing.” She looked it. “I know they mean the world to you, and I’m so sorry I kept you from them as your family.”

And Jon tried not to think about how it would have felt at 13, if he wasn’t just the Stark’s pity case, with his absentee parents, but a real life member of the family. An always welcomed nephew. It would have been amazing, and so he chased that thought and the resentment away with thoughts of Sansa, and how if he’d known the truth, he might not have gotten her today. (But their grandparents where cousins…)

“And I’m sorry I haven’t even met your fiancée yet.” She paused before Jon had a chance to correct her “I’m sorry, wife” she choked up a little at the word. “But I do know she seems lovely and I so look forward to getting to know her and her baby.”

“She might be the only person who likes winter roses as much as you,” Jon offered, and she squeezed his hand again.

“Then I look doubly forward to it.” She promised, and then took a deep breath, a big one, “I am so sorry I compared you to Rhaegar last night.”

Jon swallowed hard, the specter of Rhaegar Targaryen always hung too close for comfort. Someone would notice his name and ask about it, or one of his songs would pop up on the radio, or the man himself would make one of his ill advised attempts to connect.

But never once had his mother provided that link, and so soon after he’d learned another Targaryen man had gotten a Stark girl pregnant.

It was by far the worst thing that had happened yesterday.

“You couldn’t be less like him if you tried,” She said, as though he hadn’t tried. As thought he hadn’t worked hard to be gloomy and difficult during his piano lessons as a child, despite his inclination to liking them and his natural talent, as though he’d spend most of his teenage years not being utterly dismissive all the arts he knew his father loved, in favor of literally anything else, as though he hadn’t gone out of his way to cultivate at least a little resentment towards everyone else baring the Targaryen name, even Uncle Aemon and Dany. “You’ll be a great father, I know. You’ll get it from the same mystery place as Ned.”

She smiled, almost to herself.

“You’ve always been so much like Ned,” She said, and he’d heard that a thousand times, from all the Starks and the staff. From Howland Reed and Wyman Manderly and Stannis Baratheon. But there's something so different about his mother talking about her brother. “I’ve always thought that. When you were born, you looked like me, and I figured you’d be like me too, a little Brandon. All wolf’s blood and hellion.” He’d heard Ned call Arya and Rickon that more than enough times. He very carefully didn’t think of what he had done to Sansa the night before. “And sometimes…” she paused, “Sometimes I think you were. Because you can get angry, and you can get passionate, and I did go to that hockey game once. But even then, always so like Ned. To serious by half sometimes, and so desperately eager to do the right thing.” She cupped his face, running a thumb across his jawline.

“I’m so sorry I missed your godswood wedding last night,” And the tears had started leaking now, their eyes mirroring each other.

“I know you ran from all of this…” He started.

“I didn’t run from Ned and his family,” She said, quickly, “And I know you’ve been living with the mistakes I made at eighteen your entire life, but this is not a bad thing. Or a thing I’m unhappy about. My only son has married a wonderful woman, and her wonderful family loves him dearly, and they have a wolf pup on the way.”

He laughed something wet and happy.

“I know I have a lot of making up to do,” She said, “And It's going to take a long time. But the only thing I love more then a challenge, is you.”

He grinned at her, and she responded by picking a scone, and taking a large bite out of it.

***

Sansa had bitten the bullet and told Beth and Jeyen what had happened. There would be no avoiding it, long term, and she could practice telling the story.

They’d both promised to be discreet.

They probably had been too, only mentioning it to their mothers or something.

Still, by the time she got back home, her phone was blowing up with questions.

Questions she simply didn’t want to deal with.

She turned off her phone, and made for the kennels.

It was a lovely day, and she could take Lady for a walk, maybe bring a couple of the other wolves for a fun time.

In addition to Osha, any one of the Starks might have been occupying the kennels and playing with their friends. So she shouldn’t have been surprised when one of them was.

Lyanna Stark, or perhaps Lyanna Snow, they hadn’t had a chance to parse the legality of it all, was sitting in a corner, feeding bits of sausage to Grey Wind and Ghost and Lady in turn.

Summer and Shaggy were not there, meaning Bran and Rickon had taken them out, perhaps for a walk or perhaps to the house, where they were technically not at all allowed. Nymeria was lazing around with the two old wolves in the other end of the habitat.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lyanna said, once Sansa had stepped in fully, making to get up, but being unable to because of the giant wolves.

“Oh, no, don’t.” Sansa waved a dismissive hand, walking towards them, “I didn’t think to bring food, so they’d only be disappointed at me.” Though to contradict her point, Lady saddled up to her, and began immediately licking her face.

She’d seen pictures of her Aunt Lyanna before. And had always known that she looked like her father and Arya and so therefore in a distant way that she looked like Jon. But it was almost earrie now, this close.

And surrounded by direwolves, it was impossible to look at Lyanna and see anything other than a woman who belonged here, absolutely and fully.

“I’ve missed this,” Lyanna said with a sigh, before basically returning one of kisses Ghost gave her. “I use to have a couple, named them Roses and Lance when I was young.”

“After the book?” Sansa asked, she had known her father and his siblings had more than the two old ones in the corner, she didn’t remember any of the names. But she knew of the book, a children’s story book, likely packed up with most of their childhood things, telling a popular northern fairytale

“After the book,” Lyanna agreed, “It was my favorite one, growing up.”

Sansa frowned, just a little. She’d always heard that Aunt Lyanna was like Arya, boyish and wolfish and ready to fight the world. Sansa was the one who love songs and movies and stories like that. Fairytales, of ladies who made princes fall in love with them and entire kingdoms fight wars in their name.

“Well, the wolves always want extra attention,” Sansa said, because she didn’t think her mother-in-law would appreciate twenty-seven years niecely expectations being shifted onto her suddenly. She wrapped her arms around Lady’s neck. “This one is my girl, Lady.”

“She’s the smallest, I think,” Lyanna said, “but the fiersit, I’m sure.”

Sansa actually snorted at that, “Not at all, Lady is a lady.” She nodded over to the other wolves, “Nymeria’s much worse, and Shaggy’s not even here, but he’s basically the big bad wolf.” She walked over to Lyanna, and took the bit of wall next to her, sitting down. “Besides, Ghost here was the runt of the litter,” She rubbed his muzzle, “Weren’t you, boy.”

“It's hard to believe any of them were runts.” Lyanna said, passing another bit of sausage to Lady.

“I was nine when they were born, and they were all so small,” Sansa said with a grin, “But Ghost really was the smallest, didn’t stop Jon, of course.”

“What?”

“Ghost being small didn’t stop Jon from basically falling in love at first sight. And the feeling has always been mutual.” She turned to him, “Isn’t that right boy.”

“I didn’t know Jon liked the wolves,” Lyanna said quietly.

“Oh goodness, he adores them. This group was born during his first visit.” She said, “And when there was an extra one, he basically glomped onto runt, and Dad let him name him, and Ghost has been his ever since.” She laughed, “He’s honestly looked more then once into how he could move Ghost with us to White Harbor. And if Mom gets around to asking us to move back here, what with the baby and everything, her best bet will honestly be to remind Jon he can see Ghost whenever he wants.”

Lyanna’s face had gone white, and Sansa wasn’t sure what part it was that upset her, Jon as a kid in Winterfell, Jon and Ghost, the reminder of the baby.

“I didn’t know that,” Lyanna said, then shook her head, “I’m glad Jon has a wolf,” She smiled up at Sansa, and she got the strangest feeling of looking into the mirror. Lyanna looked like a Stark, and Sansa looked like her mother, but in that moment, Sansa was reminded of her younger days, when she’d been so desperate to enchante Joffrey and Harry and Petyr, and had practiced her most becoming smile in the mirror so it looked sincere. Lyanna’s smile looked sincere, but not unpracticed. “And I’m glad he has you. Even if I don’t know you as well as I’d like. We should fix that.”

“I’d like that,” Sansa agreed. “You can ask me questions, maybe.”

And this was her first conversation with her fathers only sister, and her husband's mother.

“How old are you?” Lyanna asked, and looked a little guilty for having to.

“Twenty-seven.”

Lyanna nodded slowly. She glanced at Sansa’s stomach, bump still pretty much hidden. “You are ten years older than I was when I got pregnant with Jon.”

Sansa stopped, “I thought you were eighteen…” She thought back, it wasn’t like there was a magical maturity gap between the two, but there was definitely a legal one.

“Almost,” She conceded, “About a month away. So I was eighteen proper when he was actually born.”

“I could have sworn Jon said…”

“Jon does actually know his name day and mine, and could, if he really wanted to, do the basic math and figure it out. But he has so few positive illusions about his father, that I don’t want to break this one anymore then he does.”

“You were underage?”

“Oh yes,” She agreed, “and he was a married twenty-six year old with two children. I was an idiot.”

“You were seventeen.” Younger even then Rickon.

“I was an idiot in love. And utterly enchanted in every way. Everyone knows Rhaegar Targaryen the popstar, they might remember when he published a book of poetry, but most don’t know he did actually study academically in his arts. And so every so often he’d take a semester at some college as a poet in residence.” She paused, “I mean, Jon knows how we met, so you probably do too.” And Sansa nodded, because she did know that Jon’s dad had met Jon’s mom when she was a freshmen in college, and that her aunt had gone away during the same period. “Well, regardless, I was a precocious thing. Too young for my age and too grown up, “ Like Sansa and Arya both, Sansa didn’t say again, “The only girl, dead mother, to much money, to much freedom. The fact that I went to college at seventeen and promptly fell in love with some poet popstar was really not surprising.”

“Why did you leave?” Sansa asked, before she thought better off it, she’d given Lyanna leave to ask about her life, not the other way around.

Lyanna looked at her for a long moment, and then let out a laugh, sharp and humorless, “Oh gods, Ned doesn’t actually know, does he.” She finally said, “Ned or Ben, probably. Father wouldn’t have wanted to explain himself, and Brandon would have known better.”

“What don’t they know?”

“I came home, and I was eighteen, buy then, a month past my name day and two months pregnant. Father was furious. Just so so so upset with me. Ned was trying to be supportive, and Ben was sixteen.” She sighed, “But Brandon got mad at Rhaegar. Brandon could do math, I guess. And Brandon was so good at getting angry. He started yelling about how he was going to send Rhaegar to jail over it, and how he had ruined my life and he’d pay and I just, like I said, I was an idiot. And I got so mad at Brandon over it all.”

“You weren’t an idiot, you were an eighteen year old in love with the father of your baby.” Sansa offered.

Lyanna shrugged, “It doesn’t really matter, I got mad at Brandon, and I decided to leave. And when I did, my father said ‘if you walk out of this house, young lady, don’t bother coming back.’ And I walked out.” Sansa’s stomach sank, she could see it, too, Stark stubbornness. See Lyanna keeping that promise for over 30 years. 

“I went to a friends house in town for the night. Had a couple of good cries.” Lyanna said, “I waited until I was clearer. I could even kind of see why Brandon was mad. And so the next afternoon, I went home.” 

Sansa’s eyes went wide. She had known her aunt had left home after a fight with her father about being pregnant, but as far as she knew, that was the end of the story.

“Yeah, it's very clear now that Ned didn’t know about this.” Lyanna said, “He wasn’t around, and neither was Ben, gods, it would have probably been really different if they had been. I showed up, I had even planned an apology. And Father and Brandon just both stared at me, and father said ‘You have 30 minutes to get your things, and then turn your key over to Mr. Cassel.’ And then he walked away, and that was the last thing he ever said to me.” Sansa’s jaw actually dropped at that. “But Brandon followed me up to my room, and Brandon told me I’d made my choice, and that he was there to make sure I didn’t take anything that didn’t belong to me. I just had a couple of things, really, some jewelry that had been Mother’s that he said were Stark Heirlooms, for Starks, and I didn’t get to be that anymore.” Sansa had a bracelet that had been her Stark Grandmother’s, sitting in White Harbor, and she wondered if she’d stolen it from her aunt “Brandon was so good at getting angry,” She said again, and there were tears shining in her eyes, “I packed up most of my stuff, and then...I had this picture. The four of us, I was like 10, and so Ned and Brandon would have been just barely teenagers I guess, and Ben would have been little. And my grandmother,”

“Arya?”

“That’s the one, she’d given it to me in this pretty iron frame of roses, that she said was made special by the Flints in the mountains just for me. I loved it. I loved the frame and I loved the picture. It sat on my desk and I went to take it, to put it in my bag. And Brandon just walked up to me, and took it out of my hands, and he said, ‘that’s a picture of family.’ and then he walked out of my room. And I never saw him again either.” The tears were streaming down her face now. She cried like Jon, Sansa thought, lots of water works, but barely any sound.

Sansa felt sick. She had seen that picture. Had seen the frame. It sat on her father’s desk right now. It was the one he use to point to when telling them stories about Aunt Lyanna and Uncle Brandon. That anyone could do that to their child, that a brother could do that to her sister. No wonder Lyanna had stayed away. No wonder she’d reacted so badly to showing up at Winterfell yesterday.

“I know I haven’t been fair to Ned,” She said, after several long moments, when the wolves licked the salt form her face. “I know he wouldn’t have stood for that. Gods, if Brandon had told him, he’d have probably been really upset. But…”

“But how could you feel any other way,” Sansa offered. “What happened after that?” Lyanna Snow had given birth to a son she’d raised with the help of various nanny’s in White Harbor, and become an award winning travel writer. But that seemed a long way to go for a pregnant teenager kicked out of her home.

“Oh, Howland Reed, mostly, and honestly, gods forgive me, probably Ned. I knew, even at the time, that Howland didn’t have the money he gave me.” She sighed, “And Rhaegar. If you’ve ever wondered why Jon’s last name is, actually, Targaryen, it's because for the first three years we did basically live off his charity completely, and after those first several months, Howland talked me out of completely alienating him.”

“What do you mean, you were in love, why would that have alienated him?”

“I mean, there's nothing quite like being disowned by your family, and then being eighteen years old, alone, and pregnant to build some nice resentment to the man who put you there.”

“Was Rhaegar mad that your were pregnant?”

“No, not really,” She paused, “That’s not fair, he wasn’t mad not at all. Rhaegar wanted more children, he had always had his heart set on three. And that wasn’t going to happen with Elia,” Lyanna looked so supremely guilty at that, “Which was something my seventeen year old brain thought I could make up for. I use to promise him, before I actually got pregnant, that once I was done with school I would give him his third kid. He was happy when it happened 3 years ahead of schedule. He wanted a girl, though, another daughter.”

Which Jon was most assuredly not, “Was he upset about that?”

“Not at me,” Lyanna said, “He never held the lack of a daughter against me. Against Jon, sometime, I think, poor thing, but never against me. Rhaegar was much more upset because...Rhaegar's main methods of problem solving are his charming smile and throwing money at it until it no longer looks like a problem. That was the case on the day I met him, that’s the case today. But he always hates it when the smile stops working. And he hated it, when the smile stopped working on me. Hated it more, when Howland and his lawyer made vague threats about statutory rape charges and how much tabloids would pay for the full scandal. He’s been throwing money at Jon and me ever since.” She shook her head, “It probably says something about it all that when Jon first smiled, I was thrilled it looked more like Brandon’s and not Rhaegar’s.”

It really was a terrible story. It had robbed two half of her family form each other for years, and caused more then enough resentment and misery to go around.

“And,” Sansa offered tentatively, “When you started to resent Rhaegar, did you also started to resent his son?”

“What?” She sounded genuinely confused for a long moment, and then he eyes went wide, “Oh gods,” She nearly cried, “Oh gods, No. Does Jon think that?”

She looked genuinely quite distraught at the notion.

“He knows you love him,” Sansa offered, because that much, at least was true, though he certainly did find himself wondering about the effects his birth had had on his mother, and it was rarely in a positive light.

“Jon, somehow, was a reward for all my terrible choices.” Lyanna said after a moment, “Gods, I don’t even know how it happened, but I enter into the worst relationship ever, and I get a Jon out of it. I focus on my career and Jon finds himself the best family in the entire north to raise him. I go to meet Jon’s in-laws, and I find my big brother. I don’t know how it keeps happening, and I certainly don’t deserve it, but I love him for it over and over and over again.”

“You should tell Dad the full story,” Sansa said, finally, after Lyanna had dried her eyes, and the wolves had eaten a truly impressive amount of sausage.

“He idolized Brandon when we were young,” Lyanna countered, “We all did. I certainly did. I still almost named my son after him, even given erything. And Ned actually did.”

“Their have been a lot of Brandon Starks.” Sansa said, “it's a good name.”

“It's a great name, but my son was going to be a Targaryen,” She shook her head, a little ruefully, “And Jon Stark Targaryen was a great hero.”

“Azor Ahai.” Sansa offered.

“Yes, and they say his mother’s name was Lyanna. It seemed fitting.”

“You should still tell Dad the story,” Sansa repeated, “He’ll want to understand.”


	4. Fuck off Tolstoy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it.  
> I'm sorry this took so long. It actually was written when I posted part 3, but I wanted to look over it again a few times, and I had a midterm, then Camp NaNoWriMo strarted and all that. But I have abandoned my NaNo story, and I'm putting off my final until the last minute, so have the final chapter.

His mother had been locked in Ned’s study since just before lunch.

Sansa and Arya were whisked away by Catelyn, and told that they still had a wedding to plan.

It really should have been just another day at Winterfell, but he suddenly felt out of place. Any of the staff that had been there when his mother was a girl, or even knew enough of the stories seemed to stare at him like some strange, new aberration, and not a pretty constant fixture. Jon spent a lunch being assured by Rickon that he was a way better cousin then poor Robert Arryn. And Robb, who’d been his best friend since they were boys, suddenly wanted to recount their entire relationship, but with new emphasis on all the little things that proved they’d been related the whole time. And seemed more eager than he had been when Jon had proposed and he’d declared him on the way to being an official member of the family.

And all of that was still preferable to Jojen Reed, with his new age talk about old gods and magic and Starks.

It was all almost too much, so he made the kind of excuses that law school trained him to think up on his feet, and then went to try to get something else to occupy his mind. In the meantime, he ducked into one of the sitting rooms to hide and debating if he wanted to go play with Ghost, maybe take a drive into town, or go to Catelyn’s study and offer his opinion on table runners.

There was an old oil painting on the wall, of some historical maiden in a tourney, sure on her horse, lance at the ready, blue roses resting on her head. He stared at it for a long moment. Perhaps he’d go for a ride. He hadn’t since he’d been in town, and it would be a nice break.

He groaned a little when the door opened, fearing Rickon or Robb or maybe an escaped Arya, come to find him and drag him back into whatever new family bonding meant when you’d been intimately close to someone for nearly two decades.

It wasn’t any of them. It was Harwin, the driver. He grinned when he saw Jon, and then turned down the hall, “I found him.” He said, though he wouldn’t have been Jon’s first recruit in searching the estate for a missing person. He looked Jon up and down, “You know, I was just a kid, but I do remember your mom.” Because apparently everyone at Winterfell did. “Use to like to bother my dad about the horses.”

“She still does that,” Jon said, sullenly, because she really, truly, was still kind of obsessed with horses. When Jon had finally grasped that competitive horseback riding was an expensive hobby, he had wondered how his poor Wintertown mother had managed it as a girl. He’d also seen some of Lyanna Starks ribbons and trophies through his visits, and had often thought that his mother would have been that good, if only she’d had Stark money to pursue it. His life really was a giant pile of irony.

Harwin nodded, “Well, everyone's talking about it. Everyone's real excited to have her back…” He paused, for dramatic effect, “And everyone's happy that you aren’t Lord Stark’s secret love child.”

Jon groaned again at that.

“No one actually thought he was Ned’s,” Came a voice from the hall that Jon immediately recognized at Benjen Stark. It explained Harwin’s presence, too, he’d likely been sent to pick him up from the airport.

“They did, there were bets. On whether he was Lord Stark’s, or yours, or even your brothers.” He paused, considering, “I never took part, of course, and neither did my dad. Not once.”

“Did anyone win?” Benjen asked, coming into full view now, looking rather interested.

Harwin seemed so caught out by the question that he answered honestly, “No, I don’t think anyone ever guessed.” And then he seemed to realize what he was saying, and quickly corrected himself, “I mean, not that I know of, all this was years ago. It stopped a long time ago.”

“Sure,” Benjen said, “Well, thank you for helping me find him. I’m sure there's new gossip you don’t want to miss.”

Harwin recognized a dismissal, and even went so far as to close the door behind him, leaving Jon alone in the room with Benjen Stark. His other uncle.

He’d always loved Benjen a great deal. Had very seriously considered following him into the army through most of high school, and would likely have done it if not for the rare united front from Rhaegar and his mom in opposition. For a few year there, he’d even asked for and been granted permission to call him Uncle Ben along with the Stark kids. He was certainly a better uncle then Viserys ever was. Jon had stopped at 16 or 17, when he’d decided that playing happy family with the Starks was dangerous, what with Rickon not seeming to understand that Jon wasn’t actually related to them. Ben had seemed somewhat sad when he’d noticed. 

He didn’t seem sad now.

He had a face not so unlike Ned’s or Jon’s. Long and serious, but laughter came easier to him then it seemed to them.

He grinned, and then walked right up to Jon and pulled him into a tight hug that lasted many second. When he finally pulled back, his grin hadn’t lessened.

“It is hilarious anyone thinks Ned could have a love child, and doubly hilarious that anyone thinks he could lie about it.” he said by way of greeting.

“You never feel for that?” Jon asked, _you never speculated about me, and my relationship to your family,_ he didn’t.

Ben just shook his head, “Oh gods, it's not something Ned would do. Not something Ned could do. Ned’s more the type to say a child who wasn’t his was, for one of us, then to cheat on Cat.” He gave Jon a shrewd look. “But you know that. Everyone should know that. The better guess would have been Brandon. I did think for years after he died some woman was going to show up with a kid and demands for a paternity test.”

“So that’s what you figured I was?” Jon asked, it would explain the Uncle Benjen thing, at least. Though why he never said anything was a mystery (It would have proved useless of course, Jon has always known who his father was. There had been more than one paternity tests done to prove it.)

Benjen stepped back from him then, giving him a long look, before sitting on one of the couches and shaking his head. He didn’t answer, he didn’t say anything for several long moments.

“I thought you were Lya’s son.” He said when he finally spoke again. “I knew you were Lyanna’s son.”

Jon blinked for a few long seconds, “What do you mean you knew.”

“I mean, I wasn’t like 100% sure, it’s not like I had you DNA tested secretly or something,” He said quickly, “But,” He shrugged, “You looked just like her, acted just like Ned, and were as Northern as they came besides. We knew that Lya was pregnant around the same time as Cat was pregnant with Robb, plus, your name. Honestly, I’ve been waiting about 20 years for Ned or Howland or someone to suggest it.”

“Howland always knew,” Jon said, for want of something else.

“Yes, I gathered back from the rather furious string of text messages last night,” Ben said.

“What did he say?”

“Howland didn’t say much of anything, beyond a warning that Lyanna was here, and upset. But that he’d talk her into staying the night, at least. Ned, on the other hand, had some very uncharitable things to say about him. And that was before it devolved into a lot of woe and brooding, Ned can be like that...” He smiled then “Congratulations, by the way, I can’t say I’m not sad to have missed the wedding, but that and a baby. It is a rather long time coming, and really is all very exciting. I’m very excited.”

The manners Jon had had drilled into him escaped at that moment, and instead of offering his thanks, he just circled around to all that had been said before, “But you knew, because of my name, what does that have to do with anything?”

Benjen’s eyes flashed to the painting of the maid on the horse.

“Jon, like Jon Stark Targaryen.”

“Yeah, Azor Ahai,” Jon said, flatly, “I noticed the connection,”

“Lya always liked that story, because when we were younger our Grandmother Flint use to tell us a version where his mother’s name was Lyanna. I mean, it was probably just one of those things you tell your kid so their names in the story,” Benjen added, “There are a million stories about Brandon Starks, and Eddard always had ‘The Ned’ when he wanted something, and my favorite at age seven was ‘The Lost Ranger.’”

Jon considered that for a second, most northern fairytales featured the exploits of brave Starks from days gone past. He’d learned the likes of Brandon the daughterless, and The Ned and The Lost Ranger from his mother and nannies and childrens books. But he didn’t think any of version of the Prince that was Promised he’d ever heard had a name for the Azor Ahai’s mother, beyond Princess of House Stark. No more than his father having a name beyond Prince of House Targaryen.

“So she just wanted Lya to feel included, and I know the version Ned told all his kids featured a Princess Lyanna as the mother,” Jon had missed that. “And Lyanna did feel included. It was her second favorite story after Roses and Lances.”

“So the idea that she’d named her half Targaryen son, Jon, wasn’t a leep,” Jon offered.

“No,” Ben shook his head, “I really did keep waiting for someone to mention it. I think I would have, if she hadn’t told me.”

Something in Jon’s blood ran cold then. “When did she tell you?” He finally choked out, “You haven’t seen her since before I was born.”

“Oh, no,” He shook his head, and suddenly looked sadder then Jon had ever seen him, including that one summer after he’d broken up with his boyfriend of some 4 years. “After she left, she came back, oh, four or five times to see me. The last time would have been…” He paused, murmuring something to himself, and Jon realized he was counting, “When you were about 3, I think.”

The last time his mother had been in Wintertown.

“She was planning on coming for a visit between my graduation and starting basic. I was really excited, she didn’t want to bring you to Wintertown, but I was a real adult, and that would mean I could go visit you two on my own.” He sighed, “And then right before she came...Father and Brandon died.”

His mother hadn’t gone to her father’s funeral.

“And she, gods, she definitely cared, but she was also really angry still. And so was I. And...it didn’t go well. What she said about Dad and Brandon. They weren’t not true, they really weren’t, but I wa 18 and my dad had just died, and I didn’t want to hear it, you know.” He said. “And she left, and said she was done trying. Never returned any of my calls, and I never got to meet you. And then you followed Robb home from Cassel over winter break.”

“You never said anything.” Jon accused. Suddenly hurt beyond belief.

“I was pretty sure if she found out you were hanging out with us, your mother would take you to Essos, and we’d never hear anything from you again.” He sighed, “I don’t think I could have withstood it a third time, Jon. And I know Ned couldn’t have.”

Jon frowned, really considering it. His Uncle, worried he’d be lost to his family if the full story came out. It was nearly heartwarming. 

“When I heard your mother was coming, I did figure it meant she was willing to talk to us again, I did not think that she wouldn’t realize what was going on before she got to Winterfell.” Benjen said. “And I would have definitely mentioned it if I’d found about the baby first.” He added as an afterthought.

It was all a little too much. Jon didn’t know what to think about it. What to do with any of it. So instead he just asked a question.

“So how do you think Mom and Ned are going to react when I tell them that I’m taking Sansa last name?”

His Uncle Benjen’s face just split into a wide grin.

***

Everyone else figured out Benjen had arrived before too long.

“Just because Jon is the shiny new family member, doesn’t mean he gets to monopolize your time.” Arya announced, though after she hugged her uncle, she clarified that she actually had been sent to fetch him to go over some wedding details.

His opinion was asked about various locations and if he’d given any more thought to the idea of a Sept wedding.

Jon reiterated that he neither knew nor cared about The Seven, that he wasn’t converting to a religion Sansa herself only half followed, but as they had already actually gotten married, and it had been in the godswood, like the old gods tradition requested, he didn’t object to a new gods presence of some sort.

But even though they had gotten married yesterday, he stood firm on the other point, their wedding and the celebration, would be in the North.

“Honestly,” He said with a sigh, as Arya scrolled through the tablet for him, slightly cruel smirk on her face as she stopped to point out a particular venue, “If it was up to me, we’d get married in Winterfell.”

That seemed to cause both Sansa and Catelyn to come up short, and they shared a long look with each other, before glancing at Arya, who shrugged.

“I mean, like I’ve said before, anywhere in the North is good with me, except for just in a Sept.” He added quickly, but Sansa shook her head.

“No, that could work.” She said. “It just might require going back to the drawing board in some places.”

And then he was dismissed as bridesmaid dress swatches were brought out, and told he’d been called back in for final approval, and when they started to discuss menus.

He shut the door on Arya proclaiming that yellow clashed with her undertones. He kind of wished he could record it and send it back to her 8 year old self, along with maybe a suggestion to bring up Targaryens in both her father and his hearing.

Catelyn’s office was right down the hall from Ned’s study, and he expected the door to be closed and his mother to still be talking to him when he passed.

But instead he found the door open, and Ned sitting at his desk, talking into the phone and staring at an iron work picture frame in his hand.

He looked up when he heard Jon walk by, and quickly ushered him in with a wave of the hand.

“Yes, please get the paperwork over to me this week.” He was saying, “Yes, I’ll pass it along. Have a nice day.” He hung up the phone and looked at Jon, “Close the door, will you, give us the illusion of privacy.”

Jon did so, and then didn’t wait for an invitation to head for one of the chairs right in front of Ned’s desk.

He didn’t get a chance to sit though, because Ned put down his picture and bounded up and around his like a younger man might, and grasped Jon in a bone crushing hug, even tighter than the one his brother had given.

He pulled back with an almost dopey smile that Jon recognized from his mother’s face, but had never seen on Ned’s. Jon wondered if he ever such an expression for a moment, before Ned’s word’s caught up with him.

“That was my financial lawyer,” He was saying, but he hadn’t returned to his desk, and was instead opening the liquor cabinet, and taking out a scotch that Jon knew had been specially made at Ruddy-Hall and cost an obscene amount, even for the likes of the Starks and Targaryens. Special occasion alcohol.

“I told her to have everything ready by the end of the week,” He explained, pouring them both generous portions. “So you can look over them before you leave.”

“What am I looking over?“Jon hadn’t actually been eavesdropping.

“Some money stuff,” Ned said, dismissively, “Some provisions for the baby, preliminary things.” And it was so casual, that it filled Jon was a deep sense of relief. Ned Stark planning for his first grandchild’s well being, regardless of anything else. Normal. Ned-like. “And of course moving some things around for you.”

“What things?”

“Money, some shares, the usual, some for you and some for your mother.” Ned said,

“I thought we weren’t going to do that.” Jon said, “That everything was going to stay just connected to Sansa.” Jon didn’t want to feel like he was getting some bride price in return for the love of his life, and he wanted Sansa’s assets to stay her own. It wasn’t like he didn’t have his job or his trust fund anyway. Or that Sansa wouldn’t be willing to share in their general living expenses.

Ned had seemed to appreciate that.

Now he seemed confused for a moment, taking in what Jon was saying.

“Oh, no, I mean, yes, of course.” He agreed, “All of Sansa things will stay Sansa’s, this is yours. The stuff I’ve always had set aside for you.” He smiled, “This is probably a little embarrassing to admit, I always kind of figured your were a girl.” 

“What do you mean?”

“I just always figured, if Lyanna was going to have a child, it would be a girl. Maybe because so much of her role in our family growing up was defined by being the only girl. And she was always so proud of it. As proud of her flowers as she was of her fencing trophies. Ben and Howland would talk about her son, and obviously I didn’t know that they knew what they were talking about, but I always thought she had a daughter.”

That was not what he expected to hear as far as any of this went. That Ned Stark had spent the last thirty years fantasizing about a little niece, who would show up one day, probably all brown haired and violet eyed, ready to take the place of a long lost sister, and be bestowed with Stark honors and Stark money. He gotten a Jon, who showed up, stolen a direwolf, gotten really drunk with Robb and Theon in the godswood, painted one of the guest bedrooms black, and knocked up his oldest daughter.

“Sorry to disappoint.” And he might have been, actually. Rhaegar had never made much of a secret of his desire to have a second daughter instead of a second son, Jon could just never bring himself to care about what Rhaegar Targaryen wanted. But Ned, he never wanted to disappoint Ned Stark. Not as a friends dad, not as a father-in-law, and not as an Uncle. He’d never minded being a bad son to Rhaegar, but he hated to be a bad anything to Ned.

Ned laughed, until he caught a look at Jon’s face. “Jon,” he said gently, but not losing his smile. “I’m not disappointed. I can’t be disappointed, Lya, you. It's almost too much.”

Family meant everything to Ned Stark, and it would stand to reason that would include an, as until now unknown, imperfect one.

And Jon was at the center of that imperfection. The tangible proof of a teenager’s totally normal mistake. A weapon that tore a family apart. And not just any family, but the Starks.

Jon returned the smile as best he could. “Well,” He offered, “I’m glad when it came out, I could offer my mother, and not be begging for money or something.”

“Jon…”

Jon sighed, loudly, tiredly, a sigh he’d been holding in for maybe longer then he knew, “I am sorry,” He said, “I know how much losing your sister hurt you.”

“Jon, that had nothing to do with you.”

The laugh he let out was involuntary and cold as ice. “I’m pretty sure it has everything to do with me. In fact, I’m pretty sure it is a direct result of me.”

And he’d tried not to think about it since Sansa told him she still wanted to marry him. And all her siblings and Catelyn had been at their little makedo wedding that Arya and Robb and Bran had managed to arrange.

He’d tried to ignore it last night, when he’s been with Sansa.

He’d ignored it when talking to his mother and Uncle Benjen.

But it couldn’t be ignored when faced with Ned.

“It kills me how it barely affected Rhaegar.” Jon continued, “Like, I ruined your family, and Mom’s life. But Rhaegar is still married to poor Elia, and I mean, Aegon’s a fuck up, but he looks like Rhaegar, and Rhaenys’s kids are cute. Like his only comeuppance was that he wanted a girl, like you, but at least he got Dany like a year later who he could pretend with.” He shook his head again, and could feel the water building up in his eyes, but he pushed the tears away. He didn’t deserve them in this, he wasn’t the one who suffered for this. Every breath he took was at the expense of the Stark family. “I’m so sorry for all of it.”

He rested his head in his hand, “The one stain on the entirety of the Stark family, and I have go and drag it back up, go and show myself to be it,” he muttered it more to himself then to anyone who might be listening, “And now I had to go and drag your first grandchild into it too. You all deserve so much better than me.”

Ned pried his head away from his hand, and then forced his glass of scotch in his hand, “Take a drink it, you need it.”

Jon did as he was told. He didn’t wince at the burn. Ned sat not behind his desk, but in the other guest chair in front of it, turned so he was fully facing Jon.

“First of all,” Ned started, after several very long moments of just looking at him, “You did not cause anything that’s happened. They were caused by, quite frankly Father and Brandon, doing some borderline unforgivable things, and your mother being predictably stubborn and justifiably upset in response. You didn’t cause that, your existence was the perfect chance to bring out the best in our family, it's not your fault that it apparently brought out the worst. Their choices were their own, and trust me when I say that Bradon did not need you as an excuse to make very bad choices when he wanted.

“Secondly, you did not ruin your mother’s life, and I know this because not 20 minutes ago she was sitting where you are sitting right now telling me how you are the absolutely best thing that ever happened to her, and unquestionably the best thing she’s ever done. Lyanna was always going to eventually come to blows with Father, because Father’s future for Lyanna involved being a society wife for Robert Baratheon,” Jon winced at the thought, “and that would have worked out about as well as you think.”

“Thirdly, I don’t know what has given you this idea that our family is perfect. But let me remind you, that has never been that case. I know you remember what Arya was like in high school, and what Sansa was like in college. Your mother was basically both of those things at once before you where on the scene,” So boycrazy with an angry self destructive streak, that did sound like his mother as a teenager, “My brother Brandon had all of Arya’s anger with none of the righteousness, just bunch of that aggression Rickon is just now starting to burn off. Ben apparently knew about you and Lya for years and never told me. He knew who you were, and he never mentioned it to anyone.” Ned sighed now too, almost the same as Jon, “When Robb first brought you over for the holidays, Catelyn was about convinced that you were my secret bastard child.”

“But you would never...” Jon interrupted.

“Of course I would never.” Ned agreed, “I’d never have an affair, I’d never abandon a child of mind for 12 years and surreptitiously sneak them back in under the guise of them being my son’s friend. But for a moment their, Catelyn didn’t see that. Something was wrong in our marriage, something brittle and callus and very very far from perfect. A lack of communication and trust, and so much doubt.” 

“And finally, perfection is overrated, because we get you.”

Jon opened his mouth, perhaps to thank him for the underserved acceptance. But Ned cut him off completely, “I don’t think you understand. We don’t get some random person, some new family member we don’t know, who we have to find a place for, and learn, and figure out. We get you. Who everyone in our family, everyone at Winterfell, has loved for eighteen years. Who we know and want desperately to be a part of our family. And we get _you,_ Jon. You have to know how upset Ben was when you stopped referring to him as uncle. You know Rickon thought you were related to us until he was in middle school. Robb has wanted you to be a part of our family since more or less the day he met you. He made you one, years ago, even before he started plotting to get you to fall in love with his sister. I know you know Sansa loves you no matter what. But we all do.” He shook his head, trying to clear it, “There is no one in the entire world I’d rather be my son-in-law, the father of my first grandchild, then you, and I got to find out yesterday, that my sisters long lost child, wasn’t so long and lost at all. I get you as a nephew. I only know of what thing that can make me happier.” And there were tears coming from his eyes now, the happy kind Jon had so wanted to bring about yesterday.

He reached over to a flat wooden box sitting on the desk, and pulled out two cigars and a lighter, “So now, we are going to smoke to family, and togetherness, and to my first grandson.” He sounded giddy at the thought, “And you will tell me absolutely everything about it. And then, when I’m nice and happy on the joy of it all, you will apologize to me, for allowing your favorite uncle to miss you wedding, when he was in the house half a mile away, and then you’ll promise to send Sansa in later, so she can apologize for doing that to her father. And then we’ll talk about if you want to move back here now, or wait two months, so we can have the south wing renovated.”

And as Ned lit the cigar, Jon couldn’t help but laugh on a puff of summer isle smoke.

***

Despite everything, dinner had been a strained affair. But no one seemed to not want to be there, and the arrival of Shaggydog, who was unequivocally supposed to be in the kennels, provided enough of a distraction break a lot of the tension. And Catelyn’s yelling at Rickon seemed to relieve anyone else of the need to yell at anyone else.

His mother had not agreed to remain at Winterfell for the rest of her planned trip, but had promised, to take it day by day, to try, and to go to the Inn in the town square instead of the airport if it all became too much.

Pointed comments about missing weddings from all three members of the older generation of Starks were met mostly with silence from Jon and Sansa, and rather pointed barbs from Robb, Arya, and Bran, about how they’d have been welcome to come, if they hadn’t been so busy freaking out at each other in the parlor.

Howland Reed had managed to talk his way out whatever anger the aforementioned siblings held towards him for keeping the secrets they asked him to keep.

And Jon and Sansa managed to make it to bed the second night as a married couple, not too worse for ware, but definitely still cousins.

“Do you have plans tomorrow?” Sansa asked, as they curled up together.

“Ned wants Robb and I to go over to his office in the afternoon,” He said, distractedly, already nuzzling in her hair, “And at some point I am going to actually file the name change paperwork, but otherwise I’m free, what did you have in mind.”

“I didn’t, mom’s having a contractor come over. Apparently she’s determined to see us moved into the guest house.”

Jon laughed, “Your dad was suggesting the south wing, but I think I’d like the guest house more.”

Sansa sat up, so she could look him in the face proper with a raised eyebrow, “Are we even going to talk about it.” 

Jon frowned. “Do you... not want to move back to Winterfell?” He asked. They’d talked about how Ned and Catelyn would insist upon it with the baby. Teasing and joking, yes, but he had figured, also true.

Sansa was a city girl, sure, and White Harbor was the North’s biggest and glitziest city. But Wintertown, despite the city outreach board (Chaired by Catelyn Stark) tourism claims, wasn’t really the small town backwater it pretended.

It hadn’t actually occurred to him that they wouldn’t be moving.

Sansa looked thoughtful, “What about our house?”

“I figured we’d still keep it,” he said, because it wasn’t like he hadn’t been considering it, “Cut the cleaning service to once a month instead of twice a week. And then we can use it if we need it.”

“And your job?”

“I need to talk to Stannis, but even though I probably can’t get him to move the entire Northern branch of King’s Men to Wintertown, but he might let just me go,” He paused feeling a little sheepish, and then added, “And If not, well, I hear my Uncle might have a company that can he can get me a job at.”

Sansa actually laughs at that.

“I mean,” Jon offered, “Do you want to move back. We could get a place in town, if you don’t want to live in Winterfell.” Thought Jon hasn’t really wanted to live anywhere else since he was 12.

“No, I think here is good,” She agrees, “It just felt like our first real, married couple decision should have caused some strife, maybe.”

Jon grinned, “Well, the night is young, anything else important you want to talk about?”

“Well we haven’t talked about baby names.” Sansa offered without much thought.

Jon blinked at that, “We have five months.” He offered, “I hadn’t really even started considering it.” But it wasn’t like there was much harm, and if Sansa was offering, she had ideas, “What did you have in mind for our little magic incest baby?”

“I’m sorry, what did you just call our future child?”

“You heard me,” Jon smirked, “I got an earful from Jojen Reed today, apparently, the Starks are the blood of the first men, and have magic powers because of it. And he made a point to remind us our child has it on both sides.”

Sansa almost snorts at that, “What magic are we passing on?”

“Skinchanging.”

“Right, because we’re all skinchangers.”

“Apparently Jojen knows because we dream about our wolves.”

“Yeah, so, that’s normal.” Sansa said, and she laughs again, undignified and unrefined and beautifully perfect, “I dream I’m Lady, you dream you’re Ghost, so does everyone else, which is a magical art we’ve been doing since childhood. I like him, I do, but I think he forgets sometimes that the whole world isn’t Old Gods Religious Studies Academia.”

Jon laughed, and rested his hand on Sansa’s belly, below her night shirt, “So, what do you want to call our little skinchanger.” She swatted his chest, but answered him anyway.

“Well, if its a boy, Brandon.”

“Like your brother?” Who Jon loves dearly, and was totally worth it, but would not have been Jon’s first guess for a namesake.

“I don’t think we’d call ours Bran,” She said, tracing a snowflake on his sleep pants with a long finger, “But yes, like him. And our Uncle, and a 100 other men named Brandon Stark, going back to the age of heroes and beyond.”

“The oldest Stark name.” Jon offered, because he thinks he remembered Bran saying that to him once, 7 and prouder than anything. Brandon the Builder, Brandon the Daughterless, Brandon the Breaker, and Brandon the Bad, and Brandon the Three Eyed Wolf. Brandons who started Stark Bank and Stark Industries. Their Uncle Brandon, all wolf’s blood and fast cars, and little Bran Stark, not so little anymore, but wide eyed and eager and to clever by half. A Brandon for everything. Even skinchangers

“Brandon Stark,” Jon repeats, “I like that a lot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And far north, in a land of always winter, for the first time in a thousand years, a beautifully inhuman creature opened it’s bright blue eyes. 
> 
>  
> 
> And thus ends my magnum opus, inspired by my unshakable belief that Jon and Sansa should always be cousins or what's even the point. 
> 
> Check out my [tumblr](http://darkmagyk.tumblr.com/).


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